Womanhood During Our Lord’s Judean Ministry.
THE SISTERS OF BETHANY--THEIR CHARACTERISTICS--NOT GOOD, BUT BEST
GIFTS--THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF LOVE--SALOME’S STRANGE REQUEST--HER
FIDELITY--JOANNA--THE POOR WIDOW’S GIFT--HOW ESTIMATED--THE
SAVIOUR’S WORDS OF PEACE.
The sisters of Bethany, Martha and Mary, come to our view three times
during our Lord’s Judean ministry. The first view we have of them is
recorded in Luke x, 38-42, where these sisters entertain our Lord after
a long, weary day’s teaching. The second is recorded in John xi, 1-46,
and relates to the sickness and raising from the dead their brother
Lazarus. The third is the anointing of Jesus by Mary, the account of
which is found in Matt. xxvi, 6-13; also in Mark xiv, 3-9, and John
xii, 1-8. Though these three events are each distinct, yet a careful
study will discover a close connection between the deep, underlying
truths in each, the attitude taken by Jesus, and the results in the
circumstances of everyday life.
A great deal has been said and written about these sisters of Bethany,
some regarding Martha at fault, while others think Mary did not do the
right thing to leave her sister do all the work. It is related of three
theologians that they were talking together about these two women, and
at last made their discussions concrete by questioning each other as
to which of the women they would like to have married. The first said
he would rather take Martha, to have his home looked well after; the
second said he would much prefer to have married Mary, the tender and
the loving; and the third, who had been silent up to this point, said,
“I should like Martha before dinner and Mary after.” We think there is
a great deal in this statement. There are excellencies in each, and
it is impossible for us to do without our busy Marthas in our homes
and churches, but we must remember at the same time that our Lord’s
estimate is that Mary had chosen the better part which was not to be
taken from her.
The location of Bethany is most picturesque and charming. It is
scarcely two miles from Jerusalem, yet, by its situation on the
south-eastern side of a lateral spur of Olivet, is completely hid from
view. Here, amid the olive yards and fig orchards, lived this happy
family in comfortable circumstances, and, we think, were possessed of
considerable property, and ranked well among the learned and affluent.
Jesus had been slowly journeying from Galilee down the east borders of
Samaria to Jerusalem. Those who are familiar with that journey will
remember how replete it was with incidents, wayside sermons, parables
and miracles. At length, late in the afternoon, we may well believe, He
arrived at Bethany weary with the long journey, exhausted by the labors
which attended it, and glad to get away from the multitudes which
thronged Him. That there should be some stir in the pious household at
the coming of such a guest is perfectly natural, and that Martha, the
busy, eager-hearted, and no less affectionate hostess, should hurry
to and fro with somewhat excited energy to prepare for His proper
entertainment, is not to be wondered at, for, in all probability,
she had had no information of His coming, and along with Him twelve
disciples to be provided for. The wonder is she was as self-contained
as she was.
There can be no doubt but Martha was a good housekeeper. She kept
everything straight, clean and neat. And when Jesus came, it upset her
somewhat, and she ran out into the kitchen, at the back of the house
to get the supper; not a single thing must be left undone, everything
must be there. She is so eager about it, coming in and out of the
little guest-chamber where the Master is sitting, hurrying here and
there with this one thought in her heart, that the Lord must have
her best, nothing must be left unturned to give Him comfort. And,
of course, there is a good deal of excitement and possible anxiety.
The disarranged furniture is hastily put to rights, the table had
to be freshly laid with clean white cloths, and the dining-room made
presentable, for it must be remembered Christ did not come alone.
He had a group of twelve disciples with Him, and such an influx
of visitors would throw any village home into perturbation. Then,
no doubt, the day’s labor had been a good appetizer. The kitchen
department that day was a very important department, and probably
Martha had no sooner greeted her guests than she fled to that room. No
doubt she was a good cook. Mary had full confidence that her sister
could get up the best dinner of any woman in Bethany, for Martha was
not only a hard-working and painstaking woman, but also a good manager,
ever inventive of some new pastry, or discovering something in the art
of cookery and housekeeping.
On the other hand, Mary had no worriment about household affairs. She
seemed to say, “Now, let us have a division of labor. Martha, you
cook, and I’ll sit down and be good.” So you have often seen a great
difference between two sisters. Mary is so fond of conversation she has
no time to attend to the household welfare. So by this self-appointed
arrangement, Mary is in the parlor with Christ, and Martha is in the
kitchen. It would have been better if they had divided the work, and
then they could have divided the opportunity of listening to Jesus;
but Mary monopolizes Christ while Martha swelters at the fire. It was
a very important thing that they should have a good dinner that day.
Christ was hungry, and He did not often have a luxurious entertainment.
Alas! if the duty had devolved upon Mary, what a repast that would have
been! But something went wrong in the kitchen. Perhaps the fire would
not burn, or the bread would not bake, or Martha scalded her hand, or
something was burned black that ought only to have been made brown;
and Martha lost her patience, and forgetting the proprieties of the
occasion, with besweated brow, and, perhaps with pitcher in one hand
and tongs in the other, she rushes out of the kitchen into the presence
of Christ, saying, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left
me to serve alone?”
Now look at Martha, but while you look, do not get out of patience
with her. She is cumbered and growing fretful. Her service is getting
too much for her, she can not get things done as well as she would
like. And being fretful and tired she goes wrong herself. First she is
cumbered; the next thing she feels cross with Mary; “Mary is sitting
there at the feet of Jesus, and I am so busy getting the supper. What
right has she down there when I am so busy?” The third thing she gets
cross with Jesus, and she says, “Dost not Thou care that my sister
hath left me to serve?” Cumbered in her own spirit, angry with her
sister, reflecting upon her Master, and putting the blame on him of
her weariness. Dear soul, how she loved and wanted that supper to be
all that it ought to be, but she had forgotten that service only was
acceptable which was filled up with communion with the Lord.
How tenderly the Lord deals with Martha! There was nothing acrid in
His words. He knew that she had almost worked herself to death to get
Him something to eat, and so He throws a world of tenderness into His
intonation as He seems to say, “My dear woman, do not worry, let the
dinner go; sit down on this ottoman beside Mary, your younger sister.
Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but
one thing is needful.” Is there not a volume of love and sympathy
expressed in these words? And may not the Marthas of to-day learn
wisdom from them and seek in Jesus that Friend who can be touched with
the feelings of our infirmities, “that good part which shall not be
taken away?” The Saviour looked with love and pity upon the troubled
Martha, for He realized that she was not only cumbered with many
cares, but she was also anxious for His personal comfort. He was her
Guest. Though the Lord of Glory, He was also man, having human wants.
He hungered and thirsted as other men, and it was the duty of these
sisters to provide for Him the necessary food. If at the last day it
will be a matter of condemnation to any one that he has seen one of
Christ’s disciples an hungered or athirst and did not minister unto
him, how much more guilty would they be who would suffer Christ Himself
to go without food when He was hungry, and that too in their own house!
Martha was right, therefore, in seeing that a suitable meal was
prepared for her guests. Her mistake was that she set an undue
importance upon the matter. She represents that large class of Marthas
which emphasizes fidelity to temporal cares and subordinates the
devotional and spiritual. Mary represents that side which magnifies
the devotional and spiritual, and which subordinates the temporal and
physical things, making them subserve the other. The one is serving
Christ in our own way and according to our own zeal; the other is
humbly waiting at His feet for direction. Martha must needs get up a
great entertainment. She must have a needless variety of dishes, show
thereby the skill and resources of her art as a housekeeper. Instead of
thinking mainly of what her distinguished Guest might do for her, of
the infinite store of blessing that hung upon His lips, she was wholly
intent upon what she might do for Him. While thus absorbed and fretted
with cares of how she might give her table a more comely appearance,
she was losing the heavenly manna which Jesus came to dispense, and
which she so much needed for her soul. Not only did she throw away this
priceless opportunity of hearing the words of eternal life directly
from her Lord, but she was unreasonably vexed at Mary for not being as
foolish as herself.
The thoughts and purpose of her heart were as open to Him as were those
of the gentle, loving Mary; and while one revealed care and anxiety for
the perishing things of this life the other told of perfect love and
trust in her adored Lord; of earnest longing for the knowledge of the
truth, of deep humility, of self-forgetting devotion, of that quiet
courage which fears neither ridicule nor opposition.
There may have been some truth in Martha’s complaint against her
sister. Very possibly Mary may have been so absorbed with the “good
part” which she had chosen, as to be really negligent of her household
duties, and to throw upon Martha burdens which should have been shared
equally by the sisters. Had Mary, sitting at the Master’s feet and
drinking in the precious doctrine that fell from His lips, been puffed
up thereby, and said to Jesus, “Speak to my sister Martha, that she
stop her household cares, and come and sit with me in this devout
frame of mind,” very likely the rebuke would have fallen in the other
direction.
Observe, Jesus did not meet Martha’s words against her sister with
a denial, or with an apology. He simply vindicated Mary’s religious
integrity, by testifying that she had “chosen the good part.” She
was a faithful, humble, loving disciple, and delighted to sit at His
feet and receive instruction. That which Jesus calls “that good part”
must be of priceless value, a treasure well worth obtaining in this
changing, perishing world; for it is to be enduring, “it shall not be
taken away.” Like the favored Mary, we may not literally sit at the
Master’s feet, yet He is speaking to every humble child of God, in and
by His Word. We may choose the world with all its vanities which perish
with the using, or we may choose Christ as our portion, both for time
and eternity. O! how many troubled Marthas there are in these modern
times that need to choose the “good part,” that need to sit humbly at
the dear Saviour’s feet, to be nourished by His love, cheered by His
council, and approved by the divine “well done!” The lowly life of
humble sacrifice is the only life worth living.
The next view we have of this beautiful Bethany home the scene is all
changed. The sunshine is all gone out and great clouds of sorrow and
distress have rolled into the sky of its happiness. Prosperity has
given place to the bitterest adversity, the brightness and gladness are
banished, and the sisters are right down under the deepest, darkest
shadow of sorrow that ever settled on their home. The well-beloved
brother, Lazarus, is ill unto death, and Jesus is far away, and in
the very midst of His Peræan ministry. In their distress, the first
thought of these sisters was of Jesus. “If He only knew our brother was
sick,” they doubtless said one to the other, He would sympathize with
us, and at once restore him to health. And so they sent him the simple
message, “He whom Thou lovest is sick.”
Our first thought is when the messengers, bearing the sad intelligence,
had informed the Lord, He would have at once promptly responded to this
cry of help coming from the home where he had been so heartily welcomed
and so bountifully entertained. But how different was His reception of
the message from what we naturally expected. So far as is known, He did
not even return an answer. Could they have been mistaken? Did not Jesus
love Martha and her sister, and was not the very message couched in the
words, “He whom thou lovest?” Would He dishonor the confidence they had
reposed in Him?
For two whole days He continued His Paræan ministry “in the same place
where He was.” To us this conduct is most surprising. O, how often the
Lord does so with us, even when we cry after Him in our sorrow He does
not come. But always right in front of the statement, that He does not
come, we have “Jesus loved.” How it added to their sorrow. Lazarus
dying, Christ not coming, and at last Lazarus is dead and in the tomb,
and yet the Master has not come. Surely the dense gloom of bereavement
has settled down over the home, but a little while ago so full of
sunshine and beauty.
Heartbroken, the sisters keep their vigil by the sepulchre, but among
the friends coming and going to tender their sympathy, the Friend does
not appear. He came not to save; He comes not to weep. The fact must
have added poignancy to their grief. But wait in your judgment. Right
through these dark hours Jesus loved these sisters. Do not lose sight
of this fact. It may comfort you some day. He refrained from bestowing
a small favor only that He might have an opportunity to bestow a
greater. If he had healed Lazarus by a word, Martha and Mary would
have been grateful and satisfied, but by waiting He could give them a
greater blessing, and one which might be shared by sorrowing ones in
all ages to come.
But Jesus is coming. Lazarus is dead, but Jesus is come at last, and is
halting on the brow of the hill, just outside of the village. The news
of His arrival reach the stricken sisters. How does the intelligence
of His presence affect them? “Then Martha,” the dear woman, “as soon
as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat
still in the house.” What a contrast. Martha hastens along the village
road to the brow of the hill where the Saviour had halted, doubtless
that He might meet the sisters apart from the crowd, which had come in
accordance with Jewish custom, to mourn with them, and as she comes
running to meet Him, she exclaims, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here my
brother had not died.” He certainly understood that. But in her blind
grief she could not understand how, if He loved her and her sister, He
could delay His coming until it was too late. In her words there was
almost the accent of rebuke and reproach, “If _Thou_ hadst been here my
brother had not died.” But how graciously He deals with her. He comes
to her in her argumentative state and with words the most comforting
said, “Thy brother shall rise again.”
Martha could hardly believe her ears, as she certainly did not
comprehend the meaning of these words with her heart, and replied, “I
know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” She
believed in the life everlasting, but she was going to put off being
comforted until “the last day.” In that Martha has many sisters.
But how patiently our Lord recalls the mind of Martha from the
resurrection of the last day to Himself. He said, “I am the
resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall
never die!” He is master of the thing that fills her heart with dread,
and patiently He deals with her. Was not that beautiful?
Comforted in her heart, Martha hastened back to her home, and called
Mary her sister secretly, saying, “The Master is come, and calleth for
thee.” He wanted to meet Mary apart from the public mourners, as He had
met Martha. The custom was for the comforters to do as the mourners. If
they were silent, to remain so; if they wailed, to wail with them. The
shrieks of Oriental mourners are often ear-piercing. Our Lord wanted
to avoid this, and so no doubt, although it is not chronicled, He had
commissioned Martha to bear the tidings of His arrival, and she went
and quietly and said, “The Master wants you, Mary.”
Mary “rose quickly, and came unto Him.” But mark her coming. Unlike her
sister, “when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she _fell
down at His feet_, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died.” That’s what Martha said. Yes, but what effect
did it produce upon Him when Mary said it? “When Jesus therefore saw
her weeping,” and the company of mourners who had followed her soon
after she left the house, “also weeping” with her, “He groaned in the
spirit and was troubled,” no doubt, at the empty platitude on the
part of those miserable comforters. But at the sepulchre, where lay
the mortal remains of the loved Lazarus, He wept. The Son of God in
tears! His great heart sharing another’s sorrow. This scene is the most
precious and comforting in the record of the Saviour’s life so far as
the revelation of His heart is concerned.
Martha gets His teaching, Mary gets His tears. Martha said exactly what
Mary said. When Mary said it, what a difference! Which do you think
was the better thing, to run after Him and get His teaching, or wait
till sent for and get His tears? The reasoning mind will receive the
Master’s teaching; the broken, weeping heart, His tears. Bright and
luminous as were His words with resurrection glory, Mary got to deeper
depths in the heart of God when she came than Martha, because she drew
His tears of deepest sympathy with her sorrow.
Why did Jesus weep? Because Lazarus died? No, He is going to call Him
back for a definite purpose. He knows that bereavement has broken the
hearts of these two sisters, and though He is going to heal sorrow’s
wound, He sympathized with their grief, and His heart went out in
their distress. Every wounded heart that belongs to a child of God,
the Master is going to heal by and by; yet He suffers with you in the
wounding, and enters by tears with you into the sacrament of your
sorrow. And so He wept when these women wept. There are times in our
lives when the tears of sympathy speak greater comfort than the most
eloquent words. Beloved, when you go to your friend sitting in the
shadow of her deepest sorrow, spare your words, but freely mingle your
tears with hers. Job’s comforters sat in silence for seven days before
they spoke. But if you are not delivered out of your bereavement, may
this scene in the life of our Lord comfort you with the thought that
He has something better for you. The best thing came to these sisters,
right after the bitter weeping.
In the third and last view we have of this blessed Bethany home, we
see some of the scenes of the first view coming up to us. It is the
same home, only, because of better accommodations, the feast is held in
the house of Simon, but the same people are in it. But what a change
there is here! Let us get the humanness as well as the divinity out of
it. Look at those people, what are they doing? Sitting at the table.
A lovely place for us men to sit. _But Martha served._ Do not miss
that. She is doing what she did before,--getting supper ready. She is
bustling about in her earnestness, but she has lost her grumbling. She
gets through the entertainment with smiles from first to last. She is
no less busy, but she is at rest in her mind. She is cumbered, but is
not angry with Mary, and is not reflecting on Jesus Christ. She had
learned something in the day of sorrow and darkness. It has not altered
her power to serve, but the matter and the manner of her service.
What about Mary? If you have carefully studied the last few days of
our Lord’s life upon the earth you have noticed that He was a lonely
man, and that even His disciples failed to enter into sympathy with His
suffering as it overshadowed His life. Take the story of those last six
days and our Lord’s journey to Jerusalem, and you will find that it is
an awful picture. He has the shadow of the cross upon Him, and He keeps
calling these men to Him saying, “I am going to Jerusalem to suffer,
to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will crucify Me.” His
disciples broke in upon that awful revelation by asking, “Master, who
is the greatest among us?”
But there was one soul that saw the cross--Mary. Never forget it, you
men; it was a woman that saw the cross and went into the shadow of it
with Christ, as it was a woman who became the first human preacher of
the resurrection when He came back again. So while He “sat at meat,”
in the house of Simon the leper, with the man whom He had cured of
the most terrible of diseases upon one side, and the man whom He
had raised from the dead on the other, and the disciples on either
side of these, Mary looks into the faces of the guests, and they
all were happy, as men usually are with a feast spread before them,
and even Christ, though fully conscious of his approaching death,
and all the humiliation accompanying it, did not abandon Himself to
melancholy feelings or looks, yet with that deep intuition that is
only born of the highest and the holiest love, she sees what no one
else sees, that on His heart is the shadow of a great sorrow. And she
is thinking, “What can I do? Can I do anything that will let Him see
I know something of His pain? Can I go into the darkness with Him
and share in that sorrow?” And when love does this kind of thinking
it is always extravagant. She slipped away from her sister’s side in
serving, hastened to her room, where the precious treasure was kept,
and seizing the alabaster box of spikenard, for which she had paid more
than 300 pence, she hastened back to the feast, saying to herself, “I
will give Him this; it is the choicest thing I can get hold of, and
I want to pour it out upon Him, for He knows I can see His sorrow and
pain.” So speaking, she fell at His feet and poured the perfume on His
head and feet. It was a lavish waste of love--nearly $1,000 expressed
in our money now. But nothing is wasted that is done in love for our
Lord. Some murmured, others “had indignation,” and Judas spoke right
out, “Why this waste?” Poor Mary, she had never thought of there being
any waste to her act of love. “Three hundred pence!” Judas had quickly
ciphered out the contents of the broken alabaster box, and just now, at
the expense of Mary, was very benevolent. The unbroken box of ointment
might have been sold, and the money “given to the poor.”
But, in a moment they were hushed. “Let her alone,” said Jesus. How
fortunate for Mary that she had a more righteous Judge to pass sentence
upon her action. “Against the day of My burying hath she kept this.”
Nobody else understood it. The motive determines the act. “Nothing
can be wasted that love pours upon Me, because love enters into My
suffering and sorrow, and that is what it meant.”
“She hath done what she could.” O, what a precious revelation! Jesus
is fully satisfied with the limit of our ability to serve Him. And
the sequel showed that she met her Lord’s future as no other of His
disciples had been able; anointed His brow for the thorns, and his feet
for the nails, that both thorns and nails may draw blood in the perfume
of at least one woman’s love.
In this act of love done for Jesus she has erected to herself a
monument as lasting as the Gospel, for the Master declared, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in
the whole world, there shall this also, that this woman hath done, be
told for a memorial of her.” Mary had loved wiser than she knew, but
then it is just like Jesus to pay back into our hands a hundredfold
more than the most liberal of us ever bestowed upon Him. The sweet
story of that beautiful act of the breaking of the alabaster box
will be told as long as there is a Gospel to be preached or a soul
to be saved. The wonder of wonders is, that in this world of sin and
suffering there are not more Marys to break alabaster boxes over the
world’s burdened laborers.
We now pass to notice another beautiful womanly character in White
Raiment, namely, Salome. Her name means “peaceful,” and, though she
developed considerable womanly ambition, her name quite describes her
character. She was the wife of Zebedee, a well-to-do fisherman on the
Sea of Galilee, and the mother of James and John, two of our Lord’s
best loved disciples; two who, with Simon Peter, one of their business
partners, constituted the inner apostolic circle. She had not only
given two sons to the ministry, but she herself accompanied Jesus in
His Galilean ministry, and, with others, ministered of her substance
in meeting the expenses of His journeys. She must, therefore, not only
have been a woman of means, but liberal in her use of it. No doubt
she was a quiet, home-loving body; but she liked so well to listen to
those sayings of our Lord that she was glad to leave her pleasant,
comfortable Bethsaida house beside the beautiful “blue sea of the
hills,” to go about hither and thither with her sons and drink in the
wonderful words of Christ.
Salome is best remembered as coming to our Lord, on His last memorable
journey to Jerusalem, with the strange request that her two sons might
sit, the one on the right hand of Jesus and the other on the left, in
His kingdom. Just as in the Sanhedrin, on each side of the high priest
there sat the next highest dignitaries, so here she requested the two
highest places for James and John. However, perhaps, this was not a
selfish ambition, since the request is made for others. Some one has
said, “Plan great things for God, and expect great things from God,”
and an apostle has said, “Covet earnestly the best gifts.” O, these
mothers, when there are seats of honor to be given out can not only
“covet,” but “earnestly” ask for great things for their sons.
These two disciples had already been favored. They were with Jesus
when He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead; they were with our
Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration, and, later on, in the Garden
of Gethsemane, and witnessed His agony. Though of the inner circle,
yet they possessed characteristics of their own. They were more eager
for extreme measures for pushing their Master’s cause than was even
the tempestuous Peter. Their self-poised love of the truth made them
zealous. It was they who rebuked the one who cast out demons in Jesus’
name, because he did not follow them. They requested Christ to call
down fire from heaven to burn up the Samaritan village that refused to
receive them on account of an old prejudice against the Jews. If these
disciples could have had their own way, that village, with all its
inhabitants, innocent and guilty, would have speedily been reduced to
ashes. How little they understood their Lord, or even themselves. They
did not get the idea from their Lord, for He came to save men’s lives,
and not to destroy them.
Possibly Salome may have thought her sons had some claim to these
honors. The family had some business standing. They had partners and
servants. John had some acquaintance with the High Priest, the great
head of the Hebrew Church. They had left all to follow Jesus, giving
up not only their business prospects, but their friendship with
ecclesiastical aristocrats, and now she was looking out for a good
place in His kingdom for her sons.
Probably the two brethren had directed this request through their
mother, because they remembered the rebuke which had followed their
former contention about precedence. She asked simply, directly, humbly,
nothing for herself, but what she thought was her due. He gave her no
rebuke, as He would have been sure to do if she had asked through any
selfish motive. Turning to James and John He questioned them about
their fitness for such promotion. Could they drink of His cup and be
baptized with His baptism? They thought they were able. They knew
better what He meant when Herod beheaded James, and John was banished
to Patmos.
Salome remained true to her Lord. When the terrible death-hour came she
stood beside the cross, held there by her faith and love through the
jeers of the mocking crowd, the dying agony of her Saviour, and the
darkness which veiled His terrible suffering.
[Illustration: SEEKING THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD.]
After the body was taken down from the cross, Salome, with others,
“beheld where He was laid.” O, this loving, faithful woman, true to her
nature, how she clung to her Lord to the very last. And on the morning
of the resurrection, “as it began to dawn,” we find Salome among the
company of women hastening to the sepulchre to complete the anointing
of the body of our Lord which had been so hurriedly buried on the
evening of the crucifixion. But, upon reaching the garden, these women
were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. These women--Salome, Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, and others with them--came seeking a dead body, but,
instead, they found a living angel, who asked, “Why seek ye the living
among the dead?” “He is risen; He is not here; behold the place where
they laid Him!”
What these women, in company with Salome, had seen was enough to fill
them with astonishment, and what they had heard from the lips of the
angel was enough to fill their hearts with joy. Wonderful that He whom
they had mourned as dead was indeed alive again, though they could
hardly believe it.
But Salome’s prayer for her sons had sure answer. To James was given
the high honor of being the first apostolic martyr. John had the
distinction of caring for the Virgin Mary during her last years, and,
on Patmos, the little rocky isle of his banishment, where he could hear
only the sea-bird’s cry and the melancholy wash of waves, he listened
to apocalyptic thunderings that were enough to tear any common soul to
tatters. He was permitted to put the capstone on the magnificent column
of Holy Scripture, a column that had been forty centuries in building.
Salome, the peaceful and brave, at the last went gladly away to her
reward; for she was sure that her sons, having drank of His cup, and
been baptized with His baptism, were now seated with Him in the throne
of His glory.
In connection with our Lord’s Galilean ministry, we find the name of
Joanna mentioned. She was the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod
Antipas. No doubt she followed Jesus, and ministered to Him out of her
substance, out of gratitude for having restored her child to health.
Her husband was the nobleman who went all the way from Capernaum to
Cana, and besought our Lord that He “would come down and heal His son,
for he was at the point of death.” Joanna was both at the crucifixion,
and is mentioned by name as being one of those who brought spices
and ointments to embalm the body of our Lord on the morning of the
resurrection.
These women must have possessed means, as well as a spirit of
liberality. All this is very beautiful indeed.
The last woman in White Raiment during the ministry of our Lord, is
the widow with two mites. Her act of benevolence has associated with
it many tender and pathetic touches. The circumstances, so far as they
relate to the ministry of our Lord, are inexpressibly sad. He had come
down to the last day of His public teaching, and the last hour of that
ministry. Indeed the time of His departure from the Temple was at hand.
He had taught in their streets, by the wayside, in desert places, in
the Temple. He had wept over Jerusalem that had seen so many of His
mighty works, and as in mental vision He saw the coming doom, He sobbed
out, “Oh if thou hadst known ... the things which belong to thy peace!”
But they refused to know, and had finally rejected Him as they had
rejected His teaching. The very tears of the suffering Saviour broke
out in great sobs of grief in the words, “_Ye would not!_” So, in the
very last act, all efforts having failed, He exclaims, “Behold your
house,” it was no longer God’s house, “is left unto you desolate!” As
Jesus on that last day, and at the close of the last hour of the day,
closed the door of mercy, how that word, “DESOLATE” must have sounded
through its God-forsaken courts.
At a time when such a burden of unrequited toil and sorrow was resting
upon the grieved heart of Jesus, the touching incident of this poor
widow comes to our view. Jesus had left the inner court of the Temple,
and, on His way through the court of the women, paused over against
the treasury to point out one more beautiful lesson to His disciples.
The people were casting their offerings into the thirteen great chests
set to receive their gifts. These offerings were gifts of the people,
and had no reference to “tithes.” These Jews, though they had utterly
failed to comprehend the “day of their visitation,” were, nevertheless,
liberal givers. They did not content themselves with giving a tenth of
their income. So it was the “freewill offering,” the love gifts, that
Jesus was watching. Twice in Exodus, once in Deuteronomy and once in
Leviticus had God commanded, “And none shall appear before Me empty.”
Three times a year was every Jew required to come before the Lord, and
not one time empty-handed. Never was there an exception for rich or
for poor, for great or for small. Not a pauper from Dan to Beer-sheba,
would have dared to come without his offerings. In these modern times
a sickly sentimentality has well-nigh made void the commandment of
God. He made no discrimination in favor of the poor. He that had
little, gave little. He that had much, gave much. A lamb or a kid was
an offering acceptable. If any were too poor to furnish either, “a
pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons” might be brought. If this
was too much, a few “tablespoonfuls of fine flour” was enough, and
any neighbor would furnish them these. The money value of gifts might
be brought, but the law was inexorable, “None shall appear before Me
empty-handed”--none at these great feasts. At all other times they
might be brought, at these they must.
So while the people brought their offerings, “Jesus sat over against
the treasury.” He noted carefully each person, and the ability of
each one, as the long line of contributors moved forward toward the
treasury. No one escaped His notice. The rich, from their mansions of
luxury, rulers of the people, clad in costly robes, stately Pharisees,
nobles, grand and lordly, jingling with ornaments of their social
standing, swept over the tessellated floor to the treasury as if by
special training for that particular occasion; and there, from soft
white hands whose fingers were decked in gold, cast into the treasure
chests such offering as their liberality prompted. Among the throng
came a “certain poor widow.” No one knew who she was, or where she came
from. Gliding so softly that no ear heard her footfall, and shying so
timidly that no eyes but His saw her, until her hand was over the
trumpet-shaped mouths through which the money was cast into the chests.
She deliberately of her “penury cast in all her living that she had.”
How much was that? Mark tells us her offering consisted of “two mites,
which make a farthing.” They were the smallest copper coin, and the
two were equivalent to two-fifths of a cent of our money. As these two
mites slid down the narrow tube of the trumpet-shaped aperture into the
chest below, they did not ring as did the gold and silver pieces of the
rich, but they rang to the echo in our Lord’s ears.
She was a “poor widow” before this contribution, but now she is an
utter bankrupt. If she ever had any financial standing, this rash act
of giving swept it all away. She would have to go without her supper,
for there was no opportunity, at the Passover time, to earn money. On
the contrary, it was a time for spending it. These great conventions
absorbed the small earnings of poor people. But such sacrifices
never go unrewarded, and that poor widow had her supper through some
God-appointed channel.
Jesus was so well pleased with her gift, and the faith which prompted
it, that He called the attention of His disciples to this act of
benevolence, and said, “This poor widow had cast in more than all
they.” Not more money. Two mites can not be more than the “abundance”
of the rich. How more, then? All gifts have double value--their
commercial and their representative value. They represent the
self-denial, the faith and the love of the giver. In the markets of the
world the two mites would hardly have been looked at, but in the eyes
of the King they represented more than all.
“Ah! He knew of want and hunger,
Grief and care, and sorrow too;
And the widow’s paltry farthing
Cost a sacrifice He knew.
So all fruits of self-denial
Are the gifts He loves the best;
Not the richest or most costly
Are the offerings most blest!”
If ever there was an exception, or if ever one could be exempt, surely
this widow would have been. She was in the weeds of widowhood; in the
depths of poverty; in the extreme of want; with only “two mites” in the
world and no bread for the morrow. Her own weary fingers her only means
of living; with her earthly all in her hands she freely cast it into
the treasury. Jesus was sitting where He saw it all. He who--
“Searched and tried the hearts” of men,
Saw what prompted every offering,
With His wondrous, God-like ken.
Did He stop her? He came to preach the gospel to the poor; did He tell
her she was too poor to do as she had done? He brought all His apostles
to witness the sight; did He say, “It shall not be so among you?” He
was giving laws for His Kingdom for all generations; did He say, as He
did in other cases where He intended any modification, “Ye have heard
that it was said by them of olden times that ‘none should come before
Me empty,’ but I say unto you, that whosoever is poor and needy shall
bring no gift into mine house?” Did He say it, or anything like it? Can
there ever be another occasion half so thrilling on which to say it?
The contrast between the rich and noble, the grand and lordly, who
offered tithes of all their stores, and this shy and shrinking woman,
in her garb of widowhood, is very striking. There is not a word of
reflection on the gifts or the motives of the rich. “The rich and the
poor meet together--the Lord is the maker of them all.” “No respecter
of persons” is He. All honor to the rich who bring their treasures
into the storehouse of God. All honor to the poor who make “their deep
poverty abound unto the riches of their liberality.” May we not from
this lesson draw illustrations of consecration?
God requires of every Christian a complete consecration of soul, body,
time, talent, means, and everything else. Consecration means giving to
God. When a thing is given away, ownership is transferred in the act of
giving, or presenting from the giver to the receiver. In consecration
the Christian gives himself literally to the Lord, and is henceforth
not his own, but the Lord’s. This transaction must be as real as any in
life, and divine ownership of all given to God must be recognized.
If we wholly consecrate our souls, our bodies, our time, our several
abilities, then God can use us. The Holy Spirit dwelling in the soul
will dictate to the eyes where to look, and what to look upon, that
the soul may be enriched by seeing. He will direct the feet in paths
of safety and usefulness. He will teach the hands to labor skillfully,
laying up treasures in heaven. He will give the lips messages of love,
comfort and sympathy to speak. He will direct us how to use our time,
that the best possible results may be achieved for both God and man,
and also for heaven and earth. When such consecration is made, and we
recognize fully God’s supreme ownership, then we are in a condition to
“bear much fruit.”
Few men would banish God from the universe. Too many worlds are
wheeling in their orbits, and their orbits cross and recross each
other too often to be left without a guiding hand. Moreover, the one
we inhabit is the home of the earthquake and the volcano; hurricanes
and tornadoes are born and bred on every continent and island; plague
and pestilence ride on every breeze; death and destruction waste at
noonday. In the presence of such dangers it is a comfort to know “the
Lord reigneth.” But, alas! how many would banish God from their hearts!
The clouds are the commissary trains of the nations; who would have
them without their driver? Men want God on the throne, but not in their
hearts. They would have Him watch the worlds, the clouds, the seasons,
but not their actions. As if God was not a discerner of the very
thoughts and intents of the heart.
And then this poor widow loved much. And in God’s sight no offering
of love is too small. Love is sometimes a babbling brook, leaping,
laughing, sparkling, splashing. It is beautiful then. It is sometimes a
mighty river--deep, broad, swift and strong, shouldering the burdens
of a continent and bearing them without a murmur. It is glorious then.
But it is sometimes the boundless ocean--feeding all the brooks and
rivers, bearing the commerce of the world, and yet never losing one
note in its everlasting lullaby. It rolls against all its shore lines
and moans, “If there were no bounds, I’d bring your ships to all your
doors.” Love is sublime then. The widow’s love was like the ocean; it
rolled against its farthest shore and longed to go farther. “She of her
penury” had cast into the treasury all that she had, and therefore had
given “more than all they,” for, not what is given, but what is left,
marks the grade of self-denial. There may be trust for bread when the
storehouse is full, but the faith that empties the storehouse and then
trusts for bread, is a purer and diviner faith. This poor widow was a
heroine of faith.
This apparently trifling event in the life of our Lord is of
inestimable importance. It shows, after He had ended His oppressive
day’s labor in the Temple, how he would still pause, in retiring from
it, to bless the loving act of a poor widow, rendered unto the Lord
in faith, and to adorn even so lowly a head with the crown of honor.
We need no other proof for the celestially pure temper in which He
left the inner courts of the Temple after He had pronounced His great
denunciations against the hypocritical professions of Scribes and
Pharisees. It is as if He could not so part, as if at least His last
word must be a word of blessing and of peace.
This incident of the poor widow with the two mites is also a new proof
of the power of little things, and of the gracious favor with which
the Lord looks upon the least offering which only bears the stamp of
love and faith. The last object on which our Lord’s eyes rested as He
departed from the Temple was the widow’s two mites.