sun. The pipped shell brings the longed-for answer to the gladdened
mother-bird. The ever wondrous babe-eyes give unspeakable answer to the
yearning of father and mother heart. The heart of man leaps at the call
of his God.
This makes quite clear the wondrous response men gave Jesus when He
walked among us. Jesus was God coming a bit closer in His brooding love
to mend a break and restore a blurred image. And men answered Him. They
couldn't help it. How they came! They didn't understand Him, but they
felt Him. They couldn't resist the tender, tremendous pull upon their
hearts of His mere presence.
And Jesus drew man into the closest touch of intimate friendship. The
long-range way of doing things never suited Him. And it doesn't. He
didn't keep man at arm's length. And He doesn't. And then because they
were friends, He and they, they were eager to serve, and willing even to
suffer, to walk a red-marked roadway for Him they loved.
The Gospel According to--You.
Among all those who felt and answered the call of Jesus was one called
John, John the disciple. Jesus drew John close. John came close. John
lived close. John came early and he stayed late. He stayed to the very
end, into the evening glow of life. And all his long life he was under
the tender holy spell of Jesus' presence. He was swayed by the
Jesus-passion. Always burning, he was yet never consumed; only the alloy
burned up and burned out, himself refined to the quality of life called
eternal.
Then John came to the end of his long life. And he knew he would be
slipping the tether of life and going out and up and in to the real
thing of life. And I think John was a bit troubled. Not because he was
going to die. This never troubles the man who knows Jesus. The
Jesus-touch overcomes the natural twinges of death. But he was troubled
a bit in spirit for a little by the thought that he would not be on
earth any longer to talk to people about Jesus. And to John this was the
one thing worth while. This was the life-passion.
And so I think John prayed about it a bit. For this is what he did. He
said to himself, "I will write a book. I'll make it a little book, so
busy people can quickly read it. I'll pick out the simplest words I know
so common folks everywhere that don't have dictionaries can easily
understand. And I'll make them into the shortest simplest sentences I
can so they can quickly get my story of Jesus." And so John wrote his
little book. And we call it the story of Jesus according to John, or, as
we commonly say the Gospel--the God-story--according to John.
And all this is a simple bit of a parable. It is a parable in action.
Jesus is brooding over us, giving Himself, warmly wooing us. He woos us
into personal friendship with Himself. And then He asks that each of us
shall write a gospel. This is the Gospel according to John; and these
others according to Luke and Mark and Matthew. He means that there shall
be the gospel according to--_you_. What is your name? put it in there.
Then you get the Master's plan. There is to be the gospel according to
Charles and Robert and George, and Mary and Elizabeth and Margaret.
And you say, "Write a gospel? I couldn't do that. You don't mean that.
That's just a bit of preaching." No, it isn't preaching. It's so. I do
not mean to write with a common pen of steel or gold; nor on just common
paper of rags or wood-pulp. But I do mean--_He_ means--that you shall
write with the pen of your daily life. And that you shall write on the
paper of the lives of those you're touching and living with every day.
Clearly, He meant, and He means, that you and I shall live such simple
unselfish lovable Jesus-touched lives, in just the daily commonplace
round of life, that those we live with shall know the whole story of
Jesus' love and life; His love burned out for us till there were no
ashes, and His life poured out for us till not a red drop was left
unspilled.
Are _you_ writing _your_ gospel? Is your life spelling out this simple
wondrous God-story? I can find out, though, of course, I shall not. What
I mean is this,--_the crowd knows._ The folks that touch you every day,
they know. This old Bible was never printed so much as to-day, nor
issued more numerously. And--thoughtfully--it was never read _less_ by
the common crowd on the common street of life than to-day.
That doesn't mean that the crowd doesn't read what it supposes to be
religious literature. It does. I wish we church folk read our religious
literature as faithfully as this crowd I speak of reads its. It is
reading _the gospel according to you,_ and reading it daily, and
closely, and faithfully, and remembering what it reads, and being shaped
by it.
This Bible I have here is bound in--I think it is called sealskin. I
tried to get the best wearing binding I could. But I've discovered that
there's a better binding than this. The best binding for the Gospel is
shoe-leather. The old Gospel of the Son of God is at its best as it is
being tramped out on the common street of life. Its truths stand out
clearest as they're walked out. Its love comes warmest, its power is
most resistless as it comes to you in the common give-and-take of daily
touch in home and shop and street. Are you writing your copy of the
Gospel?
You know that sometimes scholars have found some precious manuscripts in
old monasteries. They have gone into some old, grey, stone monkery in
the Near East, and they have run across old manuscripts hidden away in
some dark cell, covered with dust and with rubbish, perhaps. With much
tact and diplomacy they have at length managed to get possession of the
coveted manuscript. And they have been fairly delighted to find that
they have gotten hold of a remnant, a very precious remnant, of one of
these Gospels. In just this way much invaluable light has been gotten
that made possible these precious revised versions.
I wonder if _your_ gospel--the one you're writing with your life--is
_just a remnant,_ a ragged remnant. And perhaps there's a good bit of
dusting necessary, and removing of rubbish, to get even at what there is
there. And some of the shy hungry hearts that touch you and me need to
use quite a bit of unconscious diplomacy perhaps to get even as much as
they do. I wonder. The crowd knows. It could throw a good bit of light
here. How much of this old Jesus-story _are_ you really _living!_
Of course, there's a special touch of inspiration in these four Gospels.
The Holy Spirit brooded over these men in a special way as they wrote.
That is true. These are the standard Gospels. We would never know the
blessed story but for these four Spirit-breathed little books. But it is
also true that that same Holy Spirit will guide you in the writing of
your version of the Gospel.
These four Gospels are different from each other. The colouring of
Luke's warm personality, and of his physician habit of thought is in his
Gospel very plainly. And so it is with each one of these Gospels. And,
even so, there will be the colouring of your personality, your habit of
thought, the distinct tinge of the experience you have been through, in
the gospel you write with the pen of your life, and bind up in the
shoe-leather of your daily round.
But through all of this there will be the simple, subtle, but very real,
atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, helping you make the story plain and
full, and helping people to understand that story as it is _lived_, as
they never can simply by hearing it told with tongues or read through
eyes.
Are you writing your gospel? Is your daily life spelling out the life
and love of Jesus, that life that was poured out till none was left,
that love that was burned out till even the ashes were burned up, too?
This is the Master's plan. And practically it is the crowd's only
chance.
God in Human Garb.
Now I want to have you turn with me to the opening lines of John's
Gospel. There are not many of these opening lines. The whole story is a
short one. These lines at the beginning are like an etching, there are
the fewest touches of pen on paper, of black ink on white surface. But
the few lines are put in so simply and skilfully that they make an
exquisite picture. It's the picture of _God coming in human garb as a
wooing Lover._
I think it might be best perhaps if I might simply give you _a sort of
free reading_ of these opening lines, with a word of comment or
illustration to try to make the meaning simpler. It will be a putting of
John's words into the simple every-day colloquial speech that we
English-speaking people use. John used very simple language in his own
telling of the story in his mother-tongue. And it may help if we try to
do the same.
You will quickly see how very simple this free translation will be. Yet,
let me say, that though homely and simple it will be strictly accurate
to what John is thinking and saying in his own native speech. I mean of
course, so far as I can find out just what he is thinking and saying.
Let us turn then to John's Gospel, at its beginning. And it will help
very much if we keep our Bibles open as we talk and read together.
Listen: _in the beginning there was a wondrous One_. He was the mind of
God thinking out to man. He was the heart of God throbbing love out to
man's heart. He was the face of God looking into man's face. He was the
voice of God, soft and low, clear and distinct, speaking into man's
ears. He was the hand of God, strong and tender, reaching down to take
man by the hand and lead him back to the old trysting-place under the
tree of life, down by the river of water of life.
He was the person of God wearing a human coat and human shoes,
hand-pegged, walking in freely amongst us that we might get our tangled
up ideas about God and ourselves and about life untangled, straightened
out. He was God Himself wrapped up in human form coming close that we
might get acquainted with Him all over again.
This is part of the meaning of the little five-lettered word in his own
tongue that John chooses and uses, at the first here, as a new name for
Him who was commonly called Jesus. It was because of our ears that he
used the new word. If he had said "Jesus" at once, they would have said
"Oh! yes, we know about Him." And at once their ears would have gone
shut to the thing that John is saying.
For they didn't know. And we don't. We know _words_. The thing, the real
thing, we know so little. So John uses a new word at the first, and so
floods in new light. And then we come to see whom he is talking about.
It's a bit of the diplomacy of God so as to get in through dulled ears
and truth-hardened minds down in to the heart.
Nature always seems eager to meet a defect. It seems to hurry eagerly
forward to overcome defects and difficulties. The blind man has more
acute hearing and a more delicate sense of feel. The deaf man's eyes
grow quicker to watch faces and movements and so learn what his ears
fail to tell him. The lame man leans more on other muscles, and they
answer with greater strength to meet the defect of the weaker muscles.
The bat has shunned the light so long through so many bat-generations
that it has become blind, but it has remarkable ears, and nature has
grown for it an abnormal sense of touch, and a peculiar sensitiveness
even where there is no contact, so that it avoids obstacles in flying
with a skill that seems uncanny, incredulous.
I remember in Cincinnati one night, sitting on the platform of a public
meeting by the side of a widely known Christian worker and speaker who
was blind. As various men spoke he quietly made brief comments to me,--"
_He_ doesn't strike fire." And then, "_He_ doesn't touch them." And
then, "Ah! _he's_ got them; that's it; now they're burning." And it was
exactly so as he said. I sat fascinated as I watched the crowd and heard
his comments. The sense of discerning what was going on in another way
than by sight had been grown in him by the very necessity of his
blindness. Defect in one sense was overcome by nature, by increase in
another sense.
When Queen Victoria was in residence in Scotland at Balmoral it was her
kindly custom to present the various clergymen who preached in the
Castle chapel with a photograph marked with her autograph. When George
Matheson, the famous blind preacher, came she showed the fine thoughtful
tact for which she was famous. Clearly an autographed photograph would
not mean much in itself to a blind man. So the Queen had a miniature
bust-statue made and presented to him as her acknowledgment of his
service. And so where his eyes failed to let him see, his sense of touch
would carry to his mind and heart the fine features of the gracious
sovereign he was so glad to serve.
Jesus was God coming in such a way that we could know Him _by the feel_.
We had gone blind to His face. We couldn't read His signature plainly
autographed by His own hand on the blue above and the brown below. But
when Jesus came _men knew God by the feel_. They didn't understand
Jesus. But the sore hungry crowds reached out groping trembling fingers,
and they knew Him. They began to get acquainted with their gracious
Sovereign.
All this gives the simple clue to this word "_Word_" which John uses as
a new name for Jesus. Man had grown deaf to the music of God's voice,
blind to the beauty of His face, slow-hearted to the pleading of His
presence. His hand was touching us but we didn't feel it. So He came in
a new way, in a very homely close-up way and walked down our street into
our own doors that we might be caught by the beauty of His face, and
thrilled by the music of His voice, and thralled by the spell of His
presence.
God at His Best.
John goes on: _and this wondrous One was with God_. There were two of
them. And the two were together. They were companions, they were
friends, fellows together. _And this One was God_. Each was the same as
the other. _This is the same One who was in the later creative beginning
with God. It was through this One that all things were made. And, of all
things that have been made, not any thing was made without Him_.
You remember that John's Gospel and Genesis begin in the same way,--"in
the beginning." But John's "in the beginning," the first one, is not the
same as the Genesis "in the beginning." John's is the beginning before
there was any beginning. It is the beginning before they had begun
making calendars on the earth, because there wasn't any earth yet to
make calendars on. Then this second time the phrase is used John comes
to the later creative beginning with which Genesis opens. This is what
John is saying here.
"_In Him was life_." Out of Him came life. Out of Him comes life. There
was no life, there is none, except what was in this One, and what came,
and comes out from Him all the time. How patient God is! There walks a
man down the street. He leaves God out of his life. He may remember Him
so far as to use His name blasphemously to punctuate and emphasize what
he is saying. Yonder walks a woman in the shadow of the street at night.
And her whole life is spent walking in the dark shadow of the street of
life. And her whole life is a blasphemy against her personality, and
against the God who gave her that precious sacred personality.
Take these two as extreme illustrations. There is life there; life of
the body, of the mind, life of the human spirit. Listen softly, all the
life there is there, is coming out all the time from this One of whom
John is talking. It is not given once as a thing to be taken and stored.
It is _being_ given. It is coming constantly with each breath, from this
wondrous One. This is what John is saying here.
How _patient_ God is! Only we don't know what patience is. We know the
word, the label put on the outside. We don't know the thing, except
sometimes in very smallest part. For patience is love at its best.
Patience is God at His strongest and tenderest and best.
I think likely when we get up yonder, we'll stop one another on the
golden streets. There'll be a hand put out, gripping the other hard. And
we'll look into each other's eyes with our eyes big. And we'll say with
breaking voices, "How _patient_ God was with us down there on the earth,
down there in London and New York."
In Him was life. Out of His hand and heart is coming to us all the time
all we are and all we have. We may leave God practically out. So many of
us do. But He never leaves us out. The creating, sustaining touch of His
Hand is ever upon each of us, upon all the world.
Though He cannot do all for us He would except as we gladly come and let
Him. What He is giving us is so _much_. It's our _all_. Yet it is the
smaller part. There's the fuller part. This is the whole drive of John's
story, this fuller part. Out of Him Jesus, into us will come the newer,
the better, the abundant quality of life, if He may have His way.
And John adds,--"_and the life was the light of men."_ He was what we
_have_. He gives Himself; not things, but a person. With God everything
is _personal_. We men go to the impersonal so much, or we try to. We do
our best at it. We have a great genius for organization, especially in
this western half of the earth.
As I came back from a four years' absence from my own country, I was
instantly conscious of a change. Either my ears were changed or things
about me were. I think likely both. But the wheels were going faster
than ever. There were more wheels, and their whir seemed never out of
ear-shot. Commercial wheels, and educational, philanthropic and
religious, political and humanitarian, thicker and faster than ever,
driving all day, and with almost no night there.
And the whole attempt is to make the machine do the thing with as little
dependence as possible on the human element, even though the human
element was never emphasized more. Contradictory? Yet there it is. We
men go to the _im_personal. Yet deep down in our hearts we hunger for
the human touch, the warm personal touch. This after all is _the_ thing.
We all feel that. Yet the whole crowding of life's action is to crowd it
out.
But with God everything is personal. The life is the light of men. What
He is in Himself--that is what He gives. And this is all the light and
life we ever have. Men make botany. God makes flowers breathing their
freshening fragrance noiselessly up into your face. Man makes astronomy.
God makes the stars, shaking their firelight out of the blue down into
your wondering eyes on a clear moonless night. Man makes theology. And
theology has its place, when it's kept in its place. _God gives us
Jesus_.
I don't know much about botany. My knowledge of astronomy is very
limited. And the more I read of theology, whether Western or Eastern,
Latin Church or Greek, the first Seven Councils or the later ones, the
more I stand perplexed. It's a thing fearsomely and wonderfully
manufactured, this theology. But I frankly confess to a great fondness
for flowers, and for stars, and a love for Jesus that deepens ever more
in reverential awe and in tenderness and grateful devotion. The life was
the light of men. He Himself is all that we have. We go to _things_. We
reckon worth and wealth by things. He gives _Himself_. And He asks, not
_things_, but one's self.
Packing Most in Least.
And John goes quietly on with his great simple story: "_and the light
shineth in the darkness_," John has a way of packing much in little.
Here he packs four thousand years into three English letters. For he has
been back in that creative Genesis week. And now with one long stride he
puts his foot down in the days when Jesus walks among us as a man. Forty
centuries, by the common reckoning, packed into three letters e-t-h.
Rather a skilful bit of packing that. Yet it is not unusual. It is
characteristic both of John and of the One that guides John's pen. When
He is allowed to have free sway the Holy Spirit packs much in little.
That rugged old Hebrew prophet of fire and storm, Elijah, standing in
the grey dawn, in the mouth of an Arabian cave, had the whole of a new
God--a God of tender gentle love--packed into an exquisite sound of
gentle stillness, that smote so subtly on his ear, and completely melted
and changed this man of rock and thunder. It's a new man that turns his
face north again. The new God that had compacted Himself anew inside the
ruggedly faithful old man is revealed in the prophet's successor. This
is the new spirit, so unlike the old Elijah, that comes as a birth-right
heritage upon young Elisha. Great packing work that.
That fine-grained young university fellow on the Damascus road, driving
hard in pursuit of his earnest purpose, had the whole of a God, a new
God to him, packed into a single flash of blinding light out of the
upper blue. He had the whole of a new plan, an utterly changed plan for
his life, packed into a single sentence spoken into his amazed ears as
he lies in the dust.
And if this Holy Spirit may have His way--a big if? Yes: yet not too big
to be gotten rid of at once: God puts in the if's, that we may get the
strength of choosing. We put them out, _if_ we do. _If_ He may have His
way He'll pack--listen quietly, with your heart--He'll pack _the whole
of a Jesus_ inside you and me. Much in little! Most in least! And the
more we let Him in, the bigger that "most" prints itself to our eyes,
and the more that "least" dwindles down to the disappearing point.
God gives us His own self in Jesus. Jesus comes to live inside of us. He
doesn't give us things, but Himself. We talk about salvation. There's
something better--_a Saviour_. We talk about help in trouble. There's
something immensely more--_a Friend_, alongside, close up. We talk about
healing--sometimes, not so much these days; the subject is so much
confused. There's something much better--a _Healer_, living within,
whose presence means healing and health for body and spirit.
Then John says, "the light shineth _in the darkness_." This is God's way
of treating darkness. There are two ways of treating darkness, man's and
God's. Man's way is to attack the darkness. Suppose this hall where we
are were quite dark, all shuttered up, and suppose we were new on the
earth, and not familiar with darkness. We want to hold a meeting. But
how shall we get rid of this strange darkness that has come down over
everything? Let's each of us get a bucket or pail or basin, and take
some of the darkness out. So we'll get rid of it, and its inconvenience.
And if the suggestion were made seriously there might be talk of putting
the suggestor in a certain sort of institution for the safety of the
community. Yet this is the way we go at the other darkness, the worse
moral darkness.
_God's way_ is quite different; indeed just the exact reverse _let the
light shine._ The darkness can't stand the light. If the hall _were_
quite dark, and I scratched only a parlour-match, instantly as the
little flame broke out of the end of the stick some of the darkness
would go. It's surprising how much would go, and how quickly. The
darkness can't stand the light. It flees like a hunted hare before a
pack of hounds.
There may be times when action must betaken by a community against
certain forms of evil, so damnable, and so strongly entrenched, and so
threatening to the purity of home and young and of all. But note keenly
that this is _incidental_. It is immensely important at times, but it is
distinctly _secondary._ The great simple plan of God is this: _let the
light shine_. The darkness flees like a whipped cur, tail tightly curled
down and in, before the real thing of light.
Let me ask you a question. Come up a bit closer and listen quietly, for
this is tremendously serious. And it's the quietest spoken word that
reaches the inner cockles of the heart. Listen: is it a bit dark down
where you live? Morally dark? Spiritually? How about that? in commercial
circles and social and fraternal, in church and home and city and
neighbourhood. Is it a bit dark? Or, have I found the Garden of Eden at
last before the serpent entered?
Because if it be a bit dark, softly, please, let me say it very quietly,
for it may sound critical, and I would not have that for anything. We
are talking only to help. Though sometimes the truth itself does have a
merciless edge. If it be a bit dark does it not suggest that _the light
has not been shining as it was meant to_? For where the light shines the
darkness goes.