perfection there. The true thoughtful mother is first and chiefest a
brooder. She broods in spirit till her child looks into her eyes,
bearing the image, in face and mental impress and spirit, which the
brooding months have given. She broods over the inarticulate days when
the babe cannot tell the felt needs except to a brooding mother's keen
insight.
She broods over the baby-talk days; over the struggling days when the
child would tell its awakening thoughts out in words, but doesn't know
how yet; over the wilful days which come so early when the first battles
come that decide the whole future.
With a warmth of tenderness and patience, and a strength of gentle wise
insistence, more than human, she broods. It takes the very strength of
her life, far far more than in prenatal days. So there comes, slowly,
but as she keeps true to the brooding spirit, surely, the strong gentle
self-controlled life out of the warm womb of her brooding life. So comes
the child's higher birth, so preparing the way for the yet higher.
Now all this is at its native best in God. There only does it reach
finest fruitage. Some day we shall recognize the meaning of that modest
but tremendous little sentence,--_God is love_. This warm brooding
something that comes, gentle as the dawning light in the grey east,
fragrant as the dew of the new morning, irresistible in its pervasive
persuasive presence as the rays of the growing sun, giving to us warmth,
and life, and drawing out from within us warmth and life and beauty and
strength, all in its own image, this is the thing called love. This is
the thing that God is. As we know _it_ we are getting acquainted with
_Him_.
And if a break comes, instantly love in its grief sets itself with
warmth and renewed strength to the new harder brooding task. It gives
itself out yet more, regardless of cost, until in place of the broken
fragments there comes a finer sort of life out of the warm womb of love,
brooding, redeeming, bringing-back-again love. This is God. This is
Jesus. John shows us Jesus as a picture of the brooding God.
Five Pictures of Jesus.
There are five wondrous pictures of Jesus in these newer leaves of the
old Book. Three of them hang on the walls of Paul's tent-weaving
study-room. There's the Colossian picture, the _Creator-Jesus,_ infinite
in power, making all things above and below and around, and holding all
things together.[7]
Close by it in wondrous contrast is seen the Philippian picture. It is
the _Man-Jesus,_ emptied of all the upper-glory native to Him, bowing
down low and lower and lowest, till in the form of a slave He hangs on a
cross.[8]
And in contrast yet more striking and startling, close by its side hangs
the Ephesian picture. It is the _Enthroned-Jesus,_ back again in the
soft, blazing, blinding glory of the Father's presence, seated at His
right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and
every name that is named. And as you stand awed before this picture
your eye is caught by the artist's remarque sketch at the bottom. It is
a broken Roman seal, and an open tomb, and a bird with swelling throat
singing joyously.[9]
Then there's John's later Patmos picture of the _Present-Jesus_,
standing now down on the earth in the midst of His candle-holding
Church, but seen only by opened eyes. There He is seen as a Man of Fire,
ablaze with light, intently watching, with tender but omnipotent touch
waiting, ever waiting; with a patience unknown except in Him, still
waiting.[10]
But John's earlier Gospel picture is of the _Brooding-Jesus_. The word
"brooding" here takes in its fine deep significance. Jesus is seen here
as a brooding Lover, by the warmth of His wooing love drawing out the
warmth of an answering love. This is peculiarly and distinctively the
picture of John's Gospel. There is _a Man walking towards you_ in these
pages. Turn where you will there He is, and always facing you, with a
gentle eagerness in His face and in the bend-forward of His body.
There is always a warmth, a gentle radiating comforting drawing warmth
in His presence. This is the thing you feel most, the warmth. But it
isn't the only thing. There's the purity. There are ideals that seem out
of reach in their great height. There's the insistence on these ideals,
rigid stern absolutely unbending insistence. You _see_ these. You can't
help it. You feel them tremendously. They seem to leave you clear out
of reckoning, they are so high up. But there's the warmth, drawing
arousing wooing, irresistible.
You come to find that the warmth of that presence is as irresistible as
the ideals and the insistence are unbending. And the warmth woos you. It
warms you, till there come the intense admiration of the ideals, and
then the eager reaching of the whole being up towards them.
This is John's picture of the brooding wooing Jesus. This is God, in
human garb as He comes to us in John's pages. Jesus is God brooding over
us to woo out of us the love and purity, the purity and love, that He
woos into us by the touch of His own warm presence.
John's little book is put together as simply as his sentences. And as
you take it up, it falls apart almost of itself, so simple and natural
are its divisions. We had a look at the opening paragraphs of the
Gospel, those eighteen brief verses that open the doorway into all the
Gospel holds for us. _There_ is given chiefly John's simple vivid
tremendous picture of _a Person_, coming with swift long stride and
outreached hands.
Now we turn to the second part of the book. It runs from the nineteenth
verse of the opening chapter on through to the end of chapter twelve. It
is devoted to _the great winsome wooing_ of this great human Person.
Here we see Him on His wooing errand. He woos individual men. He gives
the personal touch. He devotes Himself to one person, now here, now
there. His skill and tact in personal dealing are matchless. But this
is not the chief wooing of these pages. It is _the nation_ He is wooing.
With rarest strategy and boldness and persistence He lays loving siege
to the nation through its leaders. This is central and dominant in all
His movements here. This is the second picture in the gallery of John's
Gospel.
It is a good thing to run through these fourteen pages of John's Gospel
_several times;_ to run through _rapidly_, though not hurriedly; to run
through them as a story until it stands out in your mind as _one simple
connected, story_. And then it will help greatly, if you are so blest as
to have some boy or girl near at hand to whom you can tell it as a story
in simple child (not childish) talk.
Pack the whole into one story of ten minutes, or fifteen: the man of the
story;[11] how He tried to win the people's hearts;[12] how towards the
end He spent a long evening with those who loved Him;[13] how awfully He
was treated by those who hated Him;[14] then how wondrously He surprised
His friends;[15] and then the little bit at the end where He prepares
breakfast and has a walk and talk on the seashore with a little group of
those who loved Him most.[16]
Tell that to a boy or girl as a short story. Use sensible words, but
_not one_ that your little listener wouldn't at once understand. Pretty
sharp discipline for the story-teller, especially if you stop to put in
a simpler word when you've blundered into a big one. The child will be
held by it But you will get the most yourself out of the telling.
Warp-Threads.
Now as you read the second part over, it gradually sifts itself into
several incidents about which the story is woven. These incidents form
the warp-threads of the narrative. Into this warp are woven, sometimes
little connecting links, sometimes quarrelsome discussion, sometimes
exquisite bits of Jesus' teaching, and sometimes John's comments. And as
the story grows it reaches one climax after another, each increasing in
intensity, until the intensest is reached.[17] And these incidents fall
naturally into groups. There are three _chief groups_ that seem to stand
out as giving the bolder points of the outline, and then _smaller
groups_ or _single incidents_ that lie in between.
It is very natural that the story begins with the accounts of the
deputation that was sent from Jerusalem by the official leaders of the
nation, down to the Jordan bottoms where John the witness was drawing
such great crowds. John modestly answers their questions about himself,
and then the next day with dramatic intensity points out the Man for
whom the whole nation has been looking for so long.
The only response from deputation and officials is a most significant
disappointing silence, a silence fully understood both by John[18] and
by Jesus.[19] But five Galileans in the crowd listening to John's reply
seek out, or are brought into personal questioning touch with, Jesus,
and then yield Him unquestioning belief and personal devotion. And these
five come, in after years, to be leaders known wherever Christ's name is
known.[20] So there begins the sharp contrast running throughout these
pages, between the two sides into which Jesus' presence divides the
crowds.
Then John traces the simple way in which the faith of these five men ran
its tiny but tough tenacious tendril-roots down into their very vitals.
A simple neighbourhood wedding occasion up near the old Nazareth home
drew Jesus thither with His kinsfolk and His new-made friends. And then
He meets the need of the homely occasion by helping out the shortened
supply of wine in such an unusual way as reveals His character. And the
conviction takes great fresh hold upon these five men that they have
made no mistake. This Man is all they had taken Him for, and He is
immensely more than they had thought into at first.[21]
Then comes a little connecting link. After the Cana visit, Jesus runs
into the near-by town of Capernaum with His kinsfolk and friends for a
few days, a sort of continuation of the neighbourhood courtesies.[22]
And then at once John goes to the intensest, and the most significant
incident of this whole section of the book. It is the drastic turning
out, by Jesus, of the traders in the temple-area at Jerusalem. This
touched at once the national leaders' most sensitive nerve, and touched
it roughly. It never ceased aching. This turning of the temple-area into
a common market-place, which so jarred on the holy atmosphere of the
place, and on Jesus' fine spirit, this was by arrangement with these
leaders, and yielded them large profit. Here was the sore spot.
With one deft stroke John lays bare the secret of the intense hatred of
Jesus by these national leaders, with which these pages teem, and which
came to its bursting head at the cross. Long after, when Jesus had died
and been raised, these five leading disciples find a new strengthening
of their faith in recalling words spoken at this time by Jesus.[23]
Growing naturally out of this Passover visit comes the Nicodemus
incident. Many of the Passover crowds were caught by the power of Jesus
shown in the miracles He did, but had not the seasoned thoughtful faith
of these first disciples. But one man sifts himself out by his spirit of
earnest inquiry. The sharp contrast that runs throughout these incidents
stands out here. This man is of the inner upper cultured circle, that
controlled national affairs, that sent that Jordan committee, and that
had been so upset by the temple cleansing.
Yet not only Nicodemus' earnest search for truth, and the questions
asked by him, but the fullness and fineness of spirit truth in Jesus'
words to him reveal the true faith of this rare inquirer; and this is
verified by his later actions.[24] Clearly Jesus found here an opened
door. Here is the first of those exquisite bits of Jesus' teaching that
mark John's Gospel.[25]
These four incidents make up the first group of, what I think of as, the
three chief groups of incidents in this section of John. The group
begins at the Jordan, and runs up into Galilee, but in its interest and
its chief incident, centres in Jerusalem. The action begins with John
the witness, and swings naturally to Jesus. The contrast in this group
of incidents is intense. With the same evidence at hand, first
contemptuous silence and loving allegiance, then the beginnings of
bitterest hate and of tenderest personal love, grow up side by side.
Then there is a sort of swing-away-from-Jerusalem group that includes
three incidents. After the rejection of John's witness to Jesus[26] by
the nation's leaders, Jesus withdraws from Jerusalem to the country
districts of Judea. There He takes up the sort of work John has been
doing, so bearing His witness to John. John had drawn great crowds down
to the Jordan and in the neighbourhood of its tributary streams.
Now Jesus helps in arousing and instructing these crowds. There are two
men preaching instead of one, and Jesus has the greater crowds. This is
used to make trouble. It stirs up gossipy disputings. It is made to look
like a jealous rivalry between the two men. And this supposed rivalry
and disputing about the various claims of the two men become the
uppermost thing. It reflects the characteristic spirit of the leaders.
John greatly renews his witness to Jesus with fresh emphasis and
earnestness.[27]
But as Jesus sees that His presence is only being made a bone of
contention He quietly slips away from Judea, turning north through
Samaria towards Galilee. Then comes the great story of the visit to
Sychar, with the exquisitely tactful winning of the sinful woman to a
life of purity, and then using her as a messenger to her people.
Imbedded in the story is another bit of Jesus' simple great teaching
talk.[28]
Then comes a brief connecting link. Finding no acceptance in Judea, His
own country, Jesus goes to Galilee, where visitors at the Jerusalem
Feast of Passover had been spreading the news of His words and deeds,
and so a gracious welcome now awaits Him.[29]
And here in Galilee He wins the believing love of a roman officer of
noble birth, whose son is desperately ill. The father's faith passes
through three stages, the belief that comes to ask for help, the deeper
belief that rests upon Jesus' word to him and starts back home, and the
yet deeper that gets confirmation of Jesus' word and power in the
recovery of his son from the very time Jesus spoke the assuring
word.[30]
These are the three incidents in this group away from the Jerusalem
district. It is striking that this group away from Jerusalem stands in
sharp contrast with that first group centering in Jerusalem. _There_ is
rejection by the nation's leaders running from contemptuous silence to
the beginning of open opposition. _Here_ with less evidence there is
acceptance by a Samaritan and a Roman; the one of no social standing;
the other of the highest.
The rejection of Jesus by the leaders stands in contrast thus far with
acceptance of Him by five Galileans, by a cultured scholarly aristocrat,
a half-breed Samaritan, and a Roman of gentle birth. Acceptance seems to
grow with the distance from Jerusalem. Yet everything hinged in
Jerusalem. _There_ had been the flood-light. Jerusalem was meant to be
the gateway to the world. The irony of sin! The blinding of greed! The
self-cheating of being self-centered!
Climbing towards the Climax.
And now, true to his controlling thought, John goes straight back to
Jerusalem with his story, ignoring intervening events. There's another
feast, not called a Passover, but commonly and probably correctly so
reckoned, another crowd-gathering Passover. An extreme chronic case of
bodily infirmity draws out the pity and power of Jesus, and the healed
man takes his first walk after thirty-eight years.
But the thing is done on a Sabbath day, and gives rise to bitterest and
murderous persecution, first on the score of Sabbath observance, and
then because Jesus claimed God as "His own Father" in a distinctive
sense. Friction fire may send out beautiful sparks. And the opposition
brings out one of the choicest bits of Jesus' teaching to be found in
John. This incident stands by itself.[31]
And now John reaches over a whole year with only a sentence or two for
connection, and comes again to a Passover. The Passover was _the pivot_
of the Jewish year and of Jewish national life. This Passover is made
notable by _Jesus' absence from Jerusalem_, the only Passover absence of
His ministry. And the reason is the violence of the persecution by the
national leaders.
There is the feeding of the hungry thousands with a handful of loaves
and fish. Was this the real Passover celebration? The multitudes fed by
Him who was the Lamb of God and the true Bread of life? while the
technical observance was empty of life! It wouldn't be the only thing of
the sort, in ancient times or modern.[32]
Jesus withdraws from the crowds who would like a bread-maker for a king,
gets a bit of quiet alone with His Father on the mountainside, and then
walks on the water in the storm to keep His appointment with the
disciples. Then follows a long disputation and another fine bit of
Jesus' teaching.[33] These two incidents make another distinct group,
separated from the previous one by a year on the far side and six months
on the hither side. And the contrast continues, between the acceptance
by the Galilean crowds and the intensifying opposition by the chief
group of Jerusalem leaders.
Then comes _the second chief group of incidents_. About six months later
Jesus returns to Jerusalem for the autumn Feast of Tabernacles. He
boldly teaches in the temple in the midst of much opposition, bitter
discussion, and concerted official effort against Him.[34] The dramatic
incident of the accused woman and the conscience-stricken leaders[35] is
followed by a yet more bitter discussion and by the first passionate
attempt at stoning.[36]
Then the incident of the man born blind but now blessedly given his
sight leads to the bitterest opposition thus far, and the casting of the
man out from all religious privileges; and is followed by the rare bit
of sheepfold and shepherd teaching.[37] These four incidents make up the
second great outstanding group of incidents, and mark the sharpest clash
and crisis thus far.
A few months later at another Jerusalem feast called the Feast of the
Dedication, comes a second hotly impulsive riotous attempt at stoning,
and then an attempt to arrest, both foiled by the restraint of Jesus'
mere presence and personal power.[38] And another connecting link traces
His going away beyond the Jordan River, where the crowds gather to Him,
and are won to warm personal belief.[39]
Another little gap of a few months passed over in silence, brings the
narrative to the _third_ and last _chief group of incidents_ in this
part of the book, and so leads immediately up to the great final events
of the whole book.
The illness and death of Lazarus draws Jesus back to a suburb of
Jerusalem, Bethany. Then the stupendous incident of the raising of
Lazarus leads to the official decision to put Jesus to death.[40] And a
connecting link of verses tells of Jesus' cautious withdrawal, of the
inquiring crowds coming to the approaching Passover, and of the public
notice given that Jesus was under official condemnation.[41]
It is at the home feast given in Bethany as a tribute of love to Jesus
that Judas, coldly criticizing a warm act of tender love, and gently
rebuked by Jesus, gets into that bad heat of temper out of which came
the foul bargaining and betrayal.[42] Another brief connecting link lets
us see the crowds more eagerly inquiring for Jesus because of the
raising of Lazarus, and the determined priests coolly plotting Lazarus'
death, too.[43]
Then comes Jesus' faithful open offer of Himself in kingly fashion to
the nation, with the tremendous enthusiasm of the multitudes, and the
hardening of the official purpose to do the one thing that will offset
this wild-fire enthusiasm.[44]
And then comes the apparently simple, but in meaning tremendous,
incident of the inquiring Greeks. The Jew door is slamming shut, but the
outside door is opening. Here the whole world opens its door, its front
door, in these Greek representatives of the best culture the earth knew.
But Jesus' vision never blurs. He understands; He alone. The only route
to Greece and the whole outer world is the underground route, the way
through Joseph's tomb.
And as the intense spirit-struggle passes, Jesus quietly goes on with
His searching appealing talk to the crowd, and then slips away into
hiding till His hour had full come.[45] And with breaking heart John
sadly recalls Isaiah's wondrous foresight of just these days and
events.[46] These are the four incidents in this third chief group.
And so the door shuts. The wooing ceases. This bit of John's story is
done. The evidence is all in. The case is made up. The nation's door to
its King shuts. The Lover's wooing of the nation ceases. John turns to a
new chapter. No further evidence is brought forward. The case rests with
the jury. The door had been shutting for a good while. The inside
door-keepers had been pulling it hard. But the great Man outside had His
hand on the knob delaying the shutting process, in the earnest hope that
it yet might be quite stopped. Now His hand reluctantly loosens its
hold. The knob is free. The inside pull does its work. The door goes to
with a vigorous slam.
The wooing is not _wholly_ done. There is still the indirect, the tacit
wooing. There's still opportunity. All through that fateful night from
Gethsemane's gate, to the last word at Pilate's seat the Lover is
wooing. But it is wooing by action, by presence, by yielding. No
pleading word is spoken. The direct wooing is done. Tender, earnest,
insistent, patient, tremendous, irresistible in itself save to those who
willed to resist anything and everything no matter what or
whom,--wondrous wooing it has been. Now it's over. That chapter is done.
Way-marks in John's Narrative.
Out of this simple running account several things sift themselves, and
stand out to our eyes. The action of the story swings chiefly _about
Jerusalem_. The other parts seem but background to make Jerusalem stand
out big. In this John's Gospel differs radically from the other three.
They are absorbed chiefly with the tireless gracious Galilean ministry
of Jesus, till the last great events force them to Jerusalem.
And the reason is plain. Jerusalem is Israel. It is the nation. Jesus is
wooing the _nation_ through its leaders. Why? For the nation's sake? for
Israel's sake? Yes and no. Because these Jews were favourites of God?
Distinctly _no_, though so highly favoured they had been in the wondrous
mission entrusted to them. But because Israel was the gateway to a world
Yes, for Israel's sake. _Through_ this gateway, so carefully prepared
when every other gate was closing, _through_ this out to a world--this
was the plan of action. And this will yet be found to be the plan.
Through a Jewish gateway the King will one day go out to touch His
world. This is the geography of John's story.
The action of the story swirls largely, too, about the great national
feasts, the Passovers, the Tabernacles or harvest-home feast of the
autumn, and one called "the Dedication," not elsewhere spoken of. To
these came great crowds of pilgrim Jews from all quarters of the world,
speaking many languages beside their national Hebrew, giving large
business, especially to money-brokers and traders in the animals and
birds used in the sacrifices. That classical Pentecost Chapter of Acts
gives the wide range of countries and of languages represented by these
pilgrim thousands. These feasts are the central occasions of John's
story.
_The time_ begins with John's preaching in the Jordan bottoms and
reaches up practically to the evening of the betrayal. It is commonly
reckoned three and a half years. That is, there are some months before
that first Passover, and then the events run through and up to the
fourth Passover, reckoning the unnamed feast of chapter five as a
Passover. This is the chronology of John's Gospel. John's Gospel gives
the only clue to the length of Jesus' ministry.