Mark vi. 34. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was
moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not
having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.
This is a text full of comfort, if we will but remember one thing:
that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and,
therefore, what he did when he was upon earth, he is doing now, and
will do till the end of the world. If we will believe this, and
look at our Lord's doings upon earth as patterns and specimens, as
it were, of his eternal life and character, then every verse in the
gospels will teach us something, and be precious to us.
The people came to hear Jesus in a desert place; a wild forest
country, among the hills on the east side of the Lake of Gennesaret.
'And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with
compassion toward them, because they were as sheep having no
shepherd: and he taught them many things.'
And, what kind of people were these, who so moved our Lord's pity?
The text tells us, that they were like sheep. Now, in what way were
they like sheep?
A sheep is simple, and harmless, and tractable, and so, I suppose,
were these people. They may not have been very clever and shrewd;
not good scholars. No doubt they were a poor, wild, ignorant, set
of people; but they were tractable; they were willing to come and
learn; they felt their own ignorance, and wanted to be taught. They
were not proud and self-sufficient, not fierce or bloodthirsty. The
text does not say that they were like wild beasts having no keeper:
but like sheep having no shepherd. And therefore Christ pitied
them, because they were teachable, willing to be taught, and worth
teaching; and yet had no one to teach them.
The Scribes and Pharisees, it seems, taught them nothing. They may
have taught the people in Jerusalem, and in the great towns,
something: but they seem, from all the gospels, to have cared
little or nothing for the poor folk out in the wild mountain
country. They liked to live in pride and comfort in the towns, with
their comfortable congregations round them, admiring them; but they
had no fancy to go out into the deserts, to seek and to save those
who were lost. They were bad shepherds, greedy shepherds, who were
glad enough to shear God's flock, and keep the wool themselves: but
they did not care to feed the flock of God. It was too much
trouble; and they could get no honour and no money by it. And most
likely they did not understand these poor people; could not speak,
hardly understand, their country language; for these Galileans spoke
a rough dialect, different from that of the upper classes.
So the Scribes and Pharisees looked down on them as a bad, wild, low
set of people, with whom nothing could be done; and said, 'This
people who knoweth not the law, is accursed.'
But what they would not do, God himself would. God in Christ had
come to feed his own flock, and to seek the lost sheep, and bring
them gently home to God's fold. He could feel for these poor wild
foresters and mountain shepherds; he could understand what was in
their hearts; for he knew the heart of man; and, therefore, he could
make them understand him. And it was for this very reason, one
might suppose, that our Lord was willing to be brought up at
Nazareth, that he might learn the country speech, and country ways,
and that the people might grow to look on him as one of themselves.
Those Scribes and Pharisees, one may suppose, were just the people
whom they could not understand; fine, rich scholars, proud people
talking very learnedly about deep doctrines. The country folk must
have looked at them as if they belonged to some other world, and
said,--Those Pharisees cannot understand us, any more than we can
them, with their hard rules about this and that. Easy enough for
rich men like them to make rules for poor ones. Indeed our Lord
said the very same of them--'Binding heavy burdens, and grievous to
be borne, and laying them on men's shoulders; while they themselves
would not touch them with one of their fingers.'
Then the Lord himself came and preached to these poor wild folk, and
they heard him gladly. And why? Because his speech was too deep
for them? Because he scolded and threatened them? No.
We never find that our Lord spoke harshly to them. They had plenty
of sins, and he knew it: but it is most remarkable that the
Evangelists never tell us what he said about those sins. What they
do tell us is, that he spoke to them of the common things around
them, of the flowers of the field, the birds of the air, of sowing
and reaping, and feeding sheep; and taught them by parables, taken
from the common country life which they lived, and the common
country things which they saw; and shewed them how the kingdom of
God was like unto this and that which they had seen from their
childhood, and how earth was a pattern of heaven. And they could
understand that. Not all of it perhaps: but still they heard him
gladly. His preaching made them understand themselves, and their
own souls, and what God felt for them, and what was right and wrong,
and what would become of them, as they never felt before. It is
plain and certain that the country people could understand Christ's
parables, when the Scribes and Pharisees could not. The Scribes and
Pharisees, in spite of all their learning, were those who were
without (as our Lord said); who had eyes and could not see, and ears
and could not hear, for their hearts were grown fat and gross. With
all their learning, they were not wise enough to understand the
message which God sends in every flower and every sunbeam; the
message which Christ preached to the poor, and the poor heard him
gladly; the message which he confirmed to them by his miracles. For
what were his miracles like? Did he call down lightning to strike
sinners dead, or call up earthquakes, to swallow them? No; he went
about healing the sick, cleansing the leper, feeding the hungry in
the wilderness; that therefore they might see by his example, the
glory of their Father in heaven, and understand that God is a God of
Love, of mercy, a deliverer, a Saviour, and not, as the Scribes and
Pharisees made him out, a hard taskmaster, keeping his anger for
ever, and extreme to mark what was done amiss.
Ah that, be sure, was what made the Scribes and Pharisees more mad
than anything else against Christ, that he spoke to the poor
ignorant people of their Father in heaven. It made them envious
enough to see the poor people listening to Christ, when they would
not listen to them; but when he told these poor folk, whom they
called 'accursed and lost sinners,' that God in heaven was their
Father, then no name was too bad for our Lord; and they called him
the worst name which they could think of--a friend of publicans and
sinners. That was the worst name, in their eyes: and yet, in
reality, it was the highest honour. But they never forgave him.
How could they? They felt that if he was doing God's work, they
were doing the devil's, that either he or they must be utterly
wrong: and they never rested till they crucified him, and stopped
him for ever, as they fancied, from telling poor ignorant people
laden with sins to consider the flowers of the field how they grow,
and learn from them that they have a Father in heaven who knoweth
what they have need of before they ask him.
But they did not stop Christ: and, what is more, they will never
stop him. He has said it, and it remains true for ever; for he is
saying it over and over again, in a thousand ways, to his sheep,
when they are wandering without a shepherd.
Only let them be Christ's sheep, and he will have compassion on
them, and teach them many things. Many may neglect them: but
Christ will not. Whoever you may be, however simple you are,
however ignorant, however lonely, still, if you are one of Christ's
sheep, if you are harmless and teachable, willing and wishing to
learn what is right, then Christ will surely teach you in his good
time. There never was a soul on earth, I believe, who really wished
for God's light, but what God's light came to it at last, as it will
to you, if you be Christ's sheep. If you are proud and conceited,
you will learn nothing. If you are fierce and headstrong, you will
learn nothing. If you are patient and gentle, you will learn all
that you need to know; for Christ will teach you. He has many ways
of teaching you. By his ministers; by the Bible; by books; by good
friends; by sorrows and troubles; by blessings and comforts; by
stirring up your mind to think over the common things which lie all
around you in your daily work. But what need for me to go on
counting by how many ways Christ will lead you, when he has more
ways than man ever dreamed of? Who hath known the mind of the Lord;
or who shall be his counsellor? Only be sure that he will teach
you, if you wish to learn; and be sure that this is what he will
teach you--to know the glory of his Father and your Father, whose
name is Love.