had been sorely troubled,[115] but He would have them not troubled by
their doubtings regarding Himself. It is true that they were outcasts
with Him, from their national home, but He would provide them a home,
and a better one. They did believe in God. They should believe Him just
as implicitly. This is the warp into which is woven the whole fabric of
that evening's talk. The whole talk is a plea for their trusting loving
acceptance of Himself as fully as of God. This word "_believe_" changes
its outer shape three times during that evening, making four words in
all, but it's always the same thing underneath.
So now the teaching goes on in freest exchange of question and answer.
What a picture of how we may talk everything out with our Lord and get
fully answered. Thomas' question helps Jesus to turn them away from
thinking of a roadway of clay and sand to a Man. Philip's helps Him to
insist on the presence of the Father in a distinctive sense within this
Man so familiarly talking with them. And then four times over He rings
out that word _believe_.
Then by a subtle turn He changes the word, though not the thing, to help
them understand better: "If ye _love_ Me."[116] That puts the thing at
once up on the _heart_ level. Believing is a thing of the heart. Their
heads were bothered. He said in effect,--all your head questions will be
answered in good time, but this thing is higher up than that. It's a
matter of your heart. And so that word _believe_ becomes _love_, its
second shape. And with that is quickly coupled _obey_, the third outer
shape He gives the word believe that night.
It is all the same thing underneath. _Love_ is the heart side of
_believe_, the inner side. _Obey_ is the life-side of believe, the
outer, the action side. The love looks out the window of the life and
then _comes_ out and _walks_ down the street on an errand. Love doesn't
simply love: it loves _some one_. Love that simply loves isn't love.
Love comes to life only in the personal touch.
And love keeps in perfect rhythm of action with the one loved. That is
the other way of saying _obey_. Obedience is the music of two wills
acting together. _Believe_ me, _love_ me, _obey_ me,--this is the
three-noted music of the upper room; three notes but one music; a fourth
note to be added later. This is the wondrous closer wooing.
"I go to the Father. We, the Father and I, will send the Holy Spirit to
you. He will come in through this opened door of obedience. He will
abide in you, come in to stay. He will be everything and do everything
that you need in every sort of circumstance. Keep in closest touch with
Him: this is to be your one rule. Your part is simple. _Believe_; that
means _love_; that means _obey_."
So they talk around the table. Then there's thoughtful silence, which
the Master breaks by saying, "Arise, let us go."
The Great Vine Picture.
Now they're walking down the street, silently, the Master in the lead,
with John and Peter close by.[117] The moon is at the full. Now they see
the temple, the moonlight falling full upon it. And the great brass
grape-vine with which it had been beautified by Herod at his building of
it shines with wondrous beauty in the enchantment of moonlight.
And now the Master is speaking again. Very quietly the words come as
they still gaze at the beauty of the brass vine. Listen to Him, "I am
the _true_ vine, and My Father the vine-gardener." Here is the
illustration that exactly pictures what He had been saying in the upper
room. It supplies the fourth word, the fourth outer shape that word
_believe_ takes on, _believe_, that is--_love_, that is--_obey_, that
is--_abide_.
Look at the vine, then you have the whole story pictured, simple,
clear, full. Each of these four words grows out of the other as fruit
out of blossom, and blossom out of the new branch and that out of the
old stock of the vine: believe, love, obey, abide; vine, new branches,
tiny blossom, fruit. The fruit grows out of the vine; yet it is the very
life of the vine. _Abide_ grows out of _believe_, yet it is the very
heart and inner life of believe.
So He goes on ringing the changes back and forth, now here, now there.
_Pruning_--that insures fruit, and more and better. _Praying_--that _is_
the fruit, some of it; that naturally grows out of the abiding. "_My
words_"--that is part of the abiding, the life-juice of the vine coming
into branch and blossom and fruit. "Joy"--that is the rich red juice of
the grape in your mouth. "_Friends_"--that is the other word for abide.
That's what abiding makes and reveals. _Abiding_--that is what friends
do: that's what friendship is, the real thing. _Obey_--that is the swing
of step with our great Friend as we go along the road together. So these
clusters of rich ripe fruit hang thick on the vine of this simple
teaching-talk as they walk along in the moonlight.
And now they're passing through some of the narrower streets as they
make their way east towards the city gate.[118] And these narrow streets
are shadowed. And you feel the shadows creeping into His talk. The world
will _hate_ them. Of course. This is a natural result of the abiding.
The outer crowd can no more put up with the Jesus-swayed man than with
Jesus Himself. And the hate would be aggressive.
But if they would clearly understand ahead what to expect it would help
them keep their feet when the worst storm came. And by staying steady
and true through the worst that came, they would be of the greatest
service. The Holy Spirit in them would reach out and talk to that outer
crowd. He would make clear to them their awful sin in killing Jesus, the
spotless purity and rightness of the absent Jesus, and the terrific fact
that the prince of the world whom they rally to so faithfully is
actually judged, doomed and damned. Then He adds, "now in a little bit
I'll be gone from you. Then a little later, I'll be with you again."
So He goes on ringing the changes back and forth on this in simple
conversational style. And now they are silent. The narrow street is
quite shadowed. He lets them think a bit over His words. And the
personal part takes hold most. And they talk softly together of what
this means,--a little while and He is gone; again a little while, and He
is back. They're plainly puzzled, yet restrained from breaking in upon
His deep mood.
But with characteristic gentleness He speaks of what they would
ask.[119] Clearly there is some terrible experience for Him and for them
just at hand. But He reaches past to the joy beyond, as the mother
forgets sharp pains in the joy of her new-born babe. And as He talks
they think they understand now, but again He gently reminds of the storm
about to break. And then He leaves them three wondrous words,--_peace,
good-cheer, overcome_. In the midst of the worst storm there may be
peace. In the thickest of tribulation the song of cheer may ring out. He
_has_ overcome. The outcome is settled. No doubts need nag. Sing! Sing
louder! _Christ is Victor_!
This is the second bit of the evening's closer wooing, this long quiet
talk about the supper table and along the road. It is wooing them up to
more intelligence in their believing and loving. It's wooing them to
trust _Him_, hold hard to _Him_, during the coming storm, when they
wouldn't understand. Even when they can't understand, but stand in
hopeless helpless bewilderment, they still can trust _Him_.
Taken into the Innermost Life.
They're outside the city-gate now, going down the path towards the
Kidron Brook. Now comes the third bit of that evening's closer
wooing.[120] And this is the tenderest, the most personal, the least
resistible bit, the closest wooing of all. He takes them into His
innermost heart-life for a brief moment. It must have reminded John
afterwards of that mountain-top experience when Jesus drew aside the
drapery of His humanity and let a little of the inner glory shine out.
Here He takes them with Him into the holy of holies of His own inner
life with His Father.
Let not any one think that Jesus was simply letting them hear Him pray,
so they might learn. Not that; not that. He was taking them into the
sacred privacy of His own innermost life. That was a bit of the wooing,
under the desperate happenings just ahead. But now as He takes them in
He quite forgets them, though He knows they are there. _He is absorbed
with the Father_. He isn't thinking now of the effect of all this on
them. That's past. He is alone in spirit with the Father, talking out
freely even as though actually quite alone.
We are in the innermost holy of holies here. The heart of the world's
life is its literature. The heart of all literature is this sacred Book
of God. The heart of this Book is the Gospels. The heart of these four
Gospels is John's. The heart of John's is this exquisite bit, chapters
thirteen to seventeen. And there's yet an inner heart here. It is this
bit, the seventeenth chapter, where the inner side of Jesus' prayer-life
lies open to us. And we shall find an innermost heart yet again here.
The simplicity of speech here catches the ear. The holy intimacy of
contact with God hushes the spirit. The certainty of the Father's
presence awes the heart greatly. The unquestioning confidence in the
outcome is to one's faith like a glass of kingdom wine fresh from the
King's own hand. The tenseness and yet exquisite quietness holds one's
being still with a great stillness. Both shoes and hat go off
instinctively and we stand with head bowed low and heart hushed for this
is holiest ground.
Of course, no paraphrase of this prayer can possibly approach its own
beauty and simplicity. But it may perhaps send one back to the prayer
itself to see better what is there.
They're out in the open, down near the Kidron. Jesus stops and looks up
towards the blue, the Father's open door, and quietly talks out of His
heart into His Father's heart, "Father: the hour is come"; talked of
long before this errand was started upon, brooded over these human
years, felt in His inner being as it ticked itself nearer in the
tremendous passing events. Now it is come. The clock is striking the
hour, striking on earth and echoed distinctly in the Father's ear.
"Father: reveal now the true character of the Son; yet only that the Son
may reveal Thy true character.[121] Thou hast already done so in the
control Thou hast given Him over all men, that so He may give to them
the eternal life. And this is the real life to come into intimate touch
of heart and life with Thee and with Thine anointed One, Jesus."
"I have already revealed Thy character in doing fully the errand Thou
didst send Me on. (And it _was_ fully done in all the active part,
though the greatest thing yet remained to be done in the tremendous
yielding, the strong passive yielding to Hate's worst that so Love's
truest and best might be clearly seen by men.) And now I am coming back
to be recognized and acknowledged and received by Thine own self even as
it was before I came away on this errand."
Thus far He has been alone with the Father face-to-face; just the two
together in closest communion. Now the prayer moves on from communion
and petition to intercession. He is thinking of others, of these men who
are grouped near by. He has prayed for them before. He is simply picking
up the thread of the accustomed prayer He had prayed, and would still
pray when He had gone from them up through the doorway of the blue.
He has revealed the Father to them, and they have understood and
believed and have followed. Now He _prays for them_, that they may be
_kept_; not taken out of the world; kept in it, giving their witness to
it, yet never of its spirit, always controlled by another Spirit. They
were being sent into the world for witness even as He had been.
And a great word breaks out like the bursting of a flood of sunlight out
of dark clouds,--_joy_. He had used it that evening before in the upper
room, and again along the road. Now it flashes out again. This reveals
the meaning of that _good-cheer_ and _overcome_ with which the roadway
talk closed. With the clouds of hate at their blackest, and the storm
just about to break in uncontrolled wild fury, He speaks of "My _joy_."
He is _singing_. In the thick of hatred and plotting here's the bit of
music, in the major key, rippling out. Such a spirit cannot be defeated.
Joy is faith singing in the storm because it sees already the clearing
light beyond.
And so He prays on, touching the same keys of the musical instrument of
His heart, back and forth, yet ever advancing in the theme. Now He
broadens out, in clear vision, beyond the gathering storm, to those,
through all the earth, and down the centuries, who would believe through
these men who are listening. What a sweep of faith. That singing cleared
His vision.
And then He sees them all, of many races and languages and radical
differences, all blended into one body of earnest loving believers drawn
by the one vision of Himself back in the glory of the Father's presence,
where they will all gather. And then love ties the knot on the end. A
personal love ties together Father and Son and--us, who humbly give the
glad homage of our hearts.
Right in the very midst of the prayer lies that innermost heart of which
I spoke a moment ago. It is in verse ten. Jesus says, "_All things that
are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine_." There lies the very inner
heart of all carried to the last degree. _There_ is glad giving and full
taking; surrender and appropriation. He who gives all may reach in and
take all. Here is, humanly, the secret of Jesus' stupendous character
and career.
And it is the same for the humblest of us. The road is no different. We
_may_ say, by His great grace, in the insistence of our sovereign wills,
"All that is mine is Thine: I give it Thee. I give it back to Thee: I
use all the strength of my will in yielding all to Thee, and in doing
it habitually."
Then we _can_ say, with greatest reverence and humility and yet bold
confidence, "All that is Thine _is mine._" Yet being mine it is Thine.
Still being Thine it is mine. So comes the perfection of the rhythmic
action of love. Our love gives our all to _Him_. And then _takes_ the
greater all of His--no, not _from_ Him, _for_ Him, held in trust, used
_for_ Him, while we keep knees and face close to the ground, lest we
stumble and slip and worse.
So the prayer closes. And if we might go back over it, alone in secret,
prayerfully, quietly thinking thoughtfully into it, until this great
simple prayer gets its hold upon our hearts. And then gradually it would
come to us that _so_ He is now praying for us, _you and me_.
What must it have meant to these men to stand there quietly, awed as
they listen to Him praying that prayer. How it reveals the deep
consciousness of the intimacy of relation between Father and Son. How it
must have touched and stirred them to the very depths to hear Jesus
telling the Father so simply about _their_ faith in Himself, and _their_
obedience, their break with their national allegiance to follow Himself.
And that word _joy_--did they wonder about it? And wonder more later
that night, and the days after? But the key-note of the music _caught_,
and soon they were singing the same tune, and in the same pitch.
What wooing! This was the closest wooing. The fine wooing of this
matchless Lover came to its superlative degree that night. Positive
degree, that touch upon their feet; comparative, that talk about the
board and along the road; superlative, this taking them in for a brief
moment into the secrecy of His inner communion with the Father.
Simplified Spelling.
And this closer wooing is not over. It hasn't quit yet. That vine is
still hanging out in fine view, all softly ablaze with the clear
beautifying light, not of a fine Passover moon; no, the light of His
_face_, His _life_, His _words_. That vine becomes for all time to every
heart the pictured meaning of _abide_. And that word _abide_ gives the
whole of the true life.
We say _Christian_ life, and rightly. I like to say also, the true, the
natural, life. Any other is abnormal, unnatural, untrue. I might say,
"of the higher Christian life," following the common usage of these
latter days. I still prefer to say _true_ life. Higher means that there
is a lower life. And that this lower is reckoned Christian, too. That is
the bother, the cheapening of things; we _call_ a thing Christian which
is less than the thing it is called.
Some of us need to go to school, and to sit down in the lower classes
where spelling is taught. We can spell _believe_ in the common way with
seven letters. We must learn to spell it with four letters--l-o-v-e. We
need to learn to spell _love_ with a _b_ and a _y_--o-b-e-y. We need to
learn to spell obey with five letters a-b-i-d-e. We need to find that
_abide_ is spelled best with four letters o-b-e-y.
We need to learn this simplified spelling a bit, then _all_ will become
simplified, living, loving, witnessing, praying, winning, singing with
joy over the results of our new spelling in the syllables of daily life.
Blessed Master, we would come to school to Thee to-day. Please let us
start down in the spelling class. And teach us, Thou Thyself teach us.
But the vine--let us make that the central picture on the wall, with the
Master in the picture pointing to the vine. And under the picture the
one word _abide_. Then the whole story is in easy shape to help,
pictured before our eyes. Abide--that is _Jesus walking around in your
shoes_, looking out through your eyes, touching in your hand, speaking
through your lips and your presence. He is _free_ to; that's _your_ side
of it. He's unhindered. He _does_ it; that's _His_ side of it.
Look up at the picture on the wall. The whole vine is in the fruit, is
it not? The whole of the fruit is in the vine, is it not? That's
abiding. The whole of Jesus will be in you as you go about your daily
common task, singing. The whole of you is in Jesus as everything simple
and great, is done _to please Him_, singing as you do it.
And just as between vine and fruit there are branch and blossom, pruning
and careful handling, sun and shade, dew and rain, so there are
_betweens_ here before full ripening of fruit comes. There's purifying,
cleansing by blood, cleansing by a soft fire burning within, and
pruning by the Gardener and by His human assistant, you, sharp,
incisive, hurting pruning.
There's _feeding_,--the juice of the vine _flows_ in, and is _taken_ in;
the divine word of the divine Master is meditated, the cud of it is
chewed daily. There's _obedience_,--perfect rhythm of action between
vine and branches. There's _prayer_, the intercourse of our spirits, His
and ours, together, the drawing from Him all we need, and the letting
Him use us in His interceding for His world. These are some of the
_betweens_. Through these comes the ripening fruit.
And the outer crowd comes eagerly for the fruit hanging over the fence
within easy reach. There's a warm sympathy with one's fellows; only the
thing's more than the words sound. The Jesus-spirit within will be felt
by those outside, something warm and gentle and helpful. There will be
things done, many things, earnestly thoughtfully done. The proper word
is service. But the thing's so much more than the word ever seems to
mean.
And there'll be yet more, a more of a surprising sort. The classical fox
called the grapes sour because he _couldn't_ reach them. There'll be
some outside sour talk because some of the crowd _won't_ reach the
fruit. It wouldn't agree with them the way they insist on living. The
Jesus-life abiding within and flowing freely out is a protest against
the opposite. The mere presence of a _Christ-abiding_ man convicts
people of the sin of their lives and their treatment of Jesus. It
convinces them that the absent Jesus is right, and so they are wrong.
So there's trouble out in the crowd just because of the ripe good fruit
hanging in plain sight and easy reach over the vineyard fence. And that
double result goes on getting more so, some coming to the vine drawn by
the fruit, some talking against fruit and vine. But the man abiding is
of good cheer. He sings. For the outcome is assured.
So every grape-vine, in garden, by roadway, or on hillside, with its
vine-stock, branches, blossom, and fruit, tells of the Father's ideal
for men, a unity of life with Himself, and with each other. And every
bunch of grapes hanging on one stem, with its many in one, tells of that
same ideal, the concord of love with the Father and with each other.
And that unity of love dominating all is irresistible to the outer
crowd, in the winsomeness of its wooing.
V
The Greatest Wooing
_A Night and a Day With Hardening Hearts: the Story of Tender
Passion and of a Terrible Tragedy_
"Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
'And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
_Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me_!
Strange, piteous, futile, thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said)
'And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited--
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancied as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and Come.'"
--"_The Hound of Heaven_
"I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto
me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving kindness, and in
mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness."--_Hosea
ii. 19, 20._
"Jesus, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll.
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
'Til the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last."
--_Charles Wesley_.
V
The Greatest Wooing
(John xviii.-xix.)
Wider Wooing.
At the top of the mountain is the peak. The peak is the range at its
highest reach. The peak grows out of the range and rests upon it and
upon the earth under all. The whole of the long mountain range and of
the earth lies under the peak. The peak tells the story of the whole
range. At the last the highest and utmost. All the rest is for this
capstone.
The great thing in Jesus' life is His death. The death crowns the life.
The whole of the life lies under and comes to its full in the death. The
highest point is touched when death is allowed to lay Him lowest. It was
the life that died that gives the distinctive meaning to the death. Let
us take off hat and shoes as we come to this peak event.
There's a change in John's story here. The evening has gone, the quiet
evening of communion. The night has set in, the dark night of hate. The
intimacies of love give place to the intrigues of hate. The joy of
communion is quickly followed by the jostling of the crowd. Out of the
secret place of prayer into the hurly-burly of passion. And the
Master's rarely sensitive spirit feels the change. Yet with quiet
resolution He steps out to face it. This is part of _the hour_, part of
His great task, the greatest part.
For the holy task of wooing is not changed. It still is wooing, but
there's a difference now. There's a shifting. The wooing goes from
closer to wider, from the disciples to the outer crowd, from the direct
wooing of the national leaders by personal plea to the indirect by
action, tremendously personal action.
It moves out into a yet wider sweep. It goes from the wooing of a nation
to the wooing of a race, from Jew distinctively to Roman
representatively, from Annas standing in God's flood light rejected to
Pilate in nature's lesser light obscured, from God's truant messenger
nation to the world's mighty ruling nation.
In the epochal event just at hand Jesus begins His great wooing of a
race. And that wooing has gone on ever since, wherever He has been able
to get through the human channels to the crowd. He was lifted up and at
once men began coming a-running broken in heart by the sight. He is
being lifted up, and men of all the race are coming as fast as the slow
news gets to them.