Divorce.
“And He arose from thence, and cometh into the borders of Judæa
and beyond Jordan: and multitudes come together unto Him again;
and, as He was wont, He taught them again. And there came unto Him
Pharisees, and asked Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his
wife? tempting Him. And He answered and said unto them, What did
Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill
of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For
your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the
beginning of the creation, Male and female made He them. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are
no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let no man put asunder. And in the house the disciples
asked Him again of this matter. And He saith unto them, Whosoever
shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery
against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and
marry another, she committeth adultery.”—MARK x. 1-12 (R.V.).
It is easy to read without emotion that Jesus arose from the scene of His
last discourse, and came into the borders of Judæa beyond Jordan. But not
without emotion did Jesus bid farewell to Galilee, to the home of His
childhood and sequestered youth, the cradle of His Church, the centre of
nearly all the love and faith He had awakened. When closer still to death,
His heart reverted to Galilee, and He promised that when He was risen He
would go thither before His disciples. Now He had to leave it. And we must
not forget that every step He took towards Jerusalem was a deliberate
approach to His assured and anticipated cross. He was not like other brave
men, who endure death when it arrives, but are sustained until the crisis
by a thousand flattering hopes and undefined possibilities. Jesus knew
precisely where and how He should suffer. And now, as He arose from
Galilee, every step said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.
As soon as He entered Perea beyond Jordan, multitudes came to Him again.
Nor did His burdened heart repress His zeal: rather He found relief in
their importunity and in His Father’s business, and so, “as He was wont,
He taught them again.” These simple words express the rule He lived by,
the patient continuance in well-doing which neither hostilities nor
anxieties could chill.
Not long was He left undisturbed. The Pharisees come to Him with a
question dangerous in itself, because there is no conceivable answer which
will not estrange many, and especially dangerous for Jesus, because
already, on the Mount, He has spoken upon this subject words at seeming
variance with His free views concerning sabbath observance, fasting, and
ceremonial purity. Most perilous of all was the decision they expected
when given by a teacher already under suspicion, and now within reach of
that Herod who had, during the lifetime of his first wife, married the
wife of a living man. “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for
every cause?” It was a decision upon this very subject which had proved
fatal to the forerunner.
But Jesus spoke out plainly. In a question and answer which are variously
reported, what is clear is that He carefully distinguished between a
command and a permission of Moses. Divorce had been allowed; yes, but some
reason had been exacted, whatever disputes might exist about its needful
gravity, and deliberation had been enforced by demanding a legal document,
a writing of divorcement. Thus conscience was bidden to examine its
motives, and time was gained for natural relentings. But after all, Jesus
declared that divorce was only a concession to their hardness of heart.
Thus we learn that Old Testament institutions were not all and of
necessity an expression of the Divine ideal. They were sometimes a
temporary concession, meant to lead to better things; an expedient rather
than a revelation.
These words contain the germ of St. Paul’s doctrine that the law itself
was a schoolmaster, and its function temporary.
To whatever concessions Moses had been driven, the original and unshaken
design of God was that man and woman should find the permanent completion
of their lives each in the other. And this is shown by three separate
considerations. The first is the plan of the creation, making them male
and female, and such that body and soul alike are only perfect when to
each its complement is added, when the masculine element and the feminine
“each fulfils defect in each ... the two-celled heart beating with one
full stroke life.” Thus by anticipation Jesus condemned the tame-spirited
verdict of His disciples, that since a man cannot relieve himself from a
union when it proves galling, “it is not good” to marry at all. To this he
distinctly answered that such an inference could not prove even tolerable,
except when nature itself, or else some social wrong, or else absorbing
devotion to the cause of God, virtually cancelled the original design. But
already he had here shown that such prudential calculation degrades man,
leaves him incomplete, traverses the design of God Who from the beginning
of the creation made them male and female. In our own days, the relation
between the sexes is undergoing a social and legislative revolution. Now
Christ says not a word against the equal rights of the sexes, and in more
than one passage St. Paul goes near to assert it. But equality is not
identity, either of vocation or capacity. This text asserts the separate
and reciprocal vocation of each, and it is worthy of consideration, how
far the special vocation of womanhood is consistent with loud assertion of
her “separate rights.”
Christ’s second proof that marriage cannot be dissolved without sin is
that glow of heart, that noble abandonment, in which a man leaves even
father and mother for the joy of his youth and the love of his espousals.
In that sacred hour, how hideous and base a wanton divorce would be felt
to be. Now man is not free to live by the mean, calculating, selfish
afterthought, which breathes like a frost on the bloom of his noblest
impulses and aspirations. He should guide himself by the light of his
highest and most generous intuitions.
And the third reason is that no man, by any possibility, can undo what
marriage does. They two are one flesh; each has become part of the very
existence of the other; and it is simply incredible that a union so
profound, so interwoven with the very tissue of their being, should lie at
the mercy of the caprice or the calculations of one or other, or of both.
Such a union arises from the profoundest depths of the nature God created,
not from mean cravings of that nature in its degradation; and like waters
springing up from the granite underneath the soil, it may suffer stain,
but it is in itself free from the contamination of the fall. Despite of
monkish and of Manichean slanders, impure dreams pretending to especial
purity, God is He Who joins together man and woman in a bond which “no
man,” king or prelate, may without guilt dissolve.
Of what followed, St. Mark is content to tell us that in the house, the
disciples pressed the question further. How far did the relaxation which
Moses granted over-rule the original design? To what extent was every
individual bound in actual life? And the answer, given by Jesus to guide
His own people through all time, is clear and unmistakeable. The tie
cannot be torn asunder without sin. The first marriage holds, until actual
adultery poisons the pure life in it, and man or woman who breaks through
its barriers commits adultery. The Baptist’s judgment of Herod was
confirmed.
So Jesus taught. Ponder well that honest unshrinking grasp of solid
detail, which did not overlook the physical union whereof is one flesh,
that sympathy with high and chivalrous devotion forsaking all else for its
beloved one, that still more spiritual penetration which discerned a
Divine purpose and a destiny in the correlation of masculine and feminine
gifts, of strength and grace, of energy and gentleness, of courage and
long-suffering—observe with how easy and yet firm a grasp He combines all
these into one overmastering argument—remember that when He spoke, the
marriage tie was being relaxed all over the ancient world, even as godless
legislation is to-day relaxing it—reflect that with such relaxation came
inevitably a blight upon the family, resulting in degeneracy and ruin for
the nation, while every race which learned the lesson of Jesus grew strong
and pure and happy—and then say whether this was only a Judæan peasant, or
the Light of the World indeed.
Christ And Little Children.
“And they brought unto Him little children, that He should touch
them: and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, He
was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the little
children to come unto Me; forbid them not: for of such is the
kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter
therein. And He took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying
His hands upon them.”—MARK x. 13-16 (R.V.).
This beautiful story gains new loveliness from its context. The disciples
had weighed the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, and decided in
their calculating selfishness, that the prohibition of divorce made it
“not good for a man to marry.” But Jesus had regarded the matter from
quite a different position; and their saying could only be received by
those to whom special reasons forbade the marriage tie. It was then that
the fair blossom and opening flower of domestic life, the tenderness and
winning grace of childhood, appealed to them for a softer judgment. Little
children (St. Luke says “babes”) were brought to Him to bless, to touch
them. It was a remarkable sight. He was just departing from Perea on His
last journey to Jerusalem. The nation was about to abjure its King and
perish, after having invoked His blood to be not on them only, but on
their children. But here were some at least of the next generation led by
parents who revered Jesus, to receive His blessing. And who shall dare to
limit the influence exerted by that benediction on their future lives? Is
it forgotten that this very Perea was the haven of refuge for Jewish
believers when the wrath fell upon their nation? Meanwhile the fresh smile
of their unconscious, unstained, unforeboding infancy met the grave smile
of the all-conscious, death-boding Man of Sorrows, as much purer as it was
more profound.
But the disciples were not melted. They were occupied with grave
questions. Babes could understand nothing, and therefore could receive no
conscious intelligent enlightenment. What then could Jesus do for them?
Many wise persons are still of quite the same opinion. No spiritual
influences, they tell us, can reach the soul until the brain is capable of
drawing logical distinctions. A gentle mother may breathe softness and
love into a child’s nature, or a harsh nurse may jar and disturb its
temper, until the effects are as visible on the plastic face as is the
sunshine or storm upon the bosom of a lake; but for the grace of God there
is no opening yet. As if soft and loving influences are not themselves a
grace of God. As if the world were given certain odds in the race, and the
powers of heaven were handicapped. As if the young heart of every child
were a place where sin abounds (since he is a fallen creature, with an
original tendency towards evil), but where grace doth not at all abound.
Such is the unlovely theory. And as long as it prevails in the Church we
need not wonder at the compensating error of rationalism, denying evil
where so many of us deny grace. It is the more amiable error of the two.
Since then the disciples could not believe that edification was for babes,
they naturally rebuked those that brought them. Alas, how often still does
the beauty and innocence of childhood appeal to men in vain. And this is
so, because we see not the Divine grace, “the kingdom of heaven,” in
these. Their weakness chafes our impatience, their simplicity irritates
our worldliness, and their touching helplessness and trustfulness do not
find in us heart enough for any glad response.
In ancient times they had to pass through the fire to Moloch, and since
then through other fires: to fashion when mothers leave them to the hired
kindness of a nurse, to selfishness when their want appeals to our
charities in vain, and to cold dogmatism, which would banish them from the
baptismal font, as the disciples repelled them from the embrace of Jesus.
But He was moved with indignation, and reiterated, as men do when they
feel deeply, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me; forbid them
not.” And He added this conclusive reason, “for of such,” of children and
childlike men, “is the kingdom of God.”
What is the meaning of this remarkable assertion? To answer aright, let us
return in fancy to the morning of our days; let our flesh, and all our
primitive being, come back to us as those of a little child.
We were not faultless then. The theological dogma of original sin, however
unwelcome to many, is in harmony with all experience. Impatience is there,
and many a childish fault; and graver evils develop as surely as life
unfolds, just as weeds show themselves in summer, the germs of which were
already mingled with the better seed in spring. It is plain to all
observers that the weeds of human nature are latent in the early soil,
that this is not pure at the beginning of each individual life. Does not
our new-fangled science explain this fact by telling us that we have still
in our blood the transmitted influences of our ancestors the brutes?
But Christ never meant to say that the kingdom of heaven was only for the
immaculate and stainless. If converted men receive it, in spite of many a
haunting appetite and recurring lust, then the frailties of our babes
shall not forbid us to believe the blessed assurance that the kingdom is
also theirs.
How many hindrances to the Divine life fall away from us, as our fancy
recalls our childhood. What weary and shameful memories, base hopes,
tawdry splendours, envenomed pleasures, entangling associations vanish,
what sins need to be confessed no longer, how much evil knowledge fades
out that we never now shall quite unlearn, which haunts the memory even
though the conscience be absolved from it. The days of our youth are not
those evil days, when anything within us saith, My soul hath no pleasure
in the ways of God.
When we ask to what especial qualities of childhood did Jesus attach so
great value, two kindred attributes are distinctly indicated in Scripture.
One is humility. The previous chapter showed us a little child set in the
midst of the emulous disciples, whom Christ instructed that the way to be
greatest was to become like this little child, the least.
A child is not humble through affectation, it never professes nor thinks
about humility. But it understands, however imperfectly, that it is beset
by mysterious and perilous forces, which it neither comprehends nor can
grapple with. And so are we. Therefore all its instincts and experiences
teach it to submit, to seek guidance, not to put its own judgment in
competition with those of its appointed guides. To them, therefore, it
clings and is obedient.
Why is it not so with us? Sadly we also know the peril of self-will, the
misleading power of appetite and passion, the humiliating failures which
track the steps of self-assertion, the distortion of our judgments, the
feebleness of our wills, the mysteries of life and death amid which we
grope in vain. Milton anticipated Sir Isaac Newton in describing the
wisest
“As children gathering pebbles on the shore.”
_Par. Reg._, iv. 330.
And if this be so true in the natural world that its sages become as
little children, how much more in those spiritual realms for which our
faculties are still so infantile, and of which our experience is so
rudimentary. We should all be nearer to the kingdom, or greater in it, if
we felt our dependence, and like the child were content to obey our Guide
and cling to Him.
The second childlike quality to which Christ attached value was readiness
to receive simply. Dependence naturally results from humility. Man is
proud of his independence only because he relies on his own powers; when
these are paralysed, as in the sickroom or before the judge, he is willing
again to become a child in the hands of a nurse or of an advocate. In the
realm of the spirit these natural powers are paralysed. Learning cannot
resist temptation, nor wealth expiate a sin. And therefore, in the
spiritual world, we are meant to be dependent and receptive.
Christ taught, in the Sermon on the Mount, that to those who asked Him,
God would give His Spirit as earthly parents give good things to their
children. Here also we are taught to accept, to receive the kingdom as
little children, not flattering ourselves that our own exertions can
dispense with the free gift, not unwilling to become pensioners of heaven,
not distrustful of the heart which grants, not finding the bounties
irksome which are prompted by a Fathers’ love. What can be more charming
in its gracefulness than the reception of a favour by an affectionate
child. His glad and confident enjoyment are a picture of what ours might
be.
Since children receive the kingdom, and are a pattern for us in doing so,
it is clear that they do not possess the kingdom as a natural right, but
as a gift. But since they do receive it, they must surely be capable of
receiving also that sacrament which is the sign and seal of it. It is a
startling position indeed which denies admission into the visible Church
to those of whom is the kingdom of God. It is a position taken up only
because many, who would shrink from any such avowal, half-unconsciously
believe that God becomes gracious to us only when His grace is attracted
by skilful movements upon our part, by conscious and well-instructed
efforts, by penitence, faith and orthodoxy. But whatever soul is capable
of any taint of sin must be capable of compensating influences of the
Spirit, by Whom Jeremiah was sanctified, and the Baptist was filled, even
before their birth into this world (Jer. i. 5; Luke i. 15). Christ
Himself, in Whom dwelt bodily all the fulness of the Godhead, was not
therefore incapable of the simplicity and dependence of infancy.
Having taught His disciples this great lesson, Jesus let His affections
loose. He folded the children in His tender and pure embrace, and blessed
them much, laying His hands on them, instead of merely touching them. He
blessed them not because they were baptized. But we baptize our children,
because all such have received the blessing, and are clasped in the arms
of the Founder of the Church.
The Rich Inquirer.
“And as He was going forth into the way, there ran one to Him, and
kneeled to Him, and asked Him, Good Master, what shall I do that I
may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest
thou Me good? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the
commandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal,
Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour thy father and
mother. And He said unto him, Master, all these things have I
observed from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and
said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven: and come, follow Me. But his countenance fell at the
saying, and he went away sorrowful: for he was one that had great
possessions.”—MARK x. 17-22 (R.V.).
The excitement stirred by our Lord’s teaching must often have shown itself
in a scene of eagerness like this which St. Mark describes so well. The
Saviour is just “going forth” when one rushes to overtake Him, and kneels
down to Him, full of the hope of a great discovery. He is so frank, so
innocent and earnest, as to win the love of Jesus. And yet he presently
goes away, not as he came, but with a gloomy forehead and a heavy heart,
and doubtless with slow reluctance.
The authorities were now in such avowed opposition that to be Christ’s
disciple was disgraceful if not dangerous to a man of mark. Yet no fear
withheld this young ruler who had so much to lose; he would not come by
night, like Nicodemus before the storm had gathered which was now so dark;
he openly avowed his belief in the goodness of the Master, and his own
ignorance of some great secret which Jesus could reveal.
There is indeed a charming frankness in his bearing, so that we admire
even his childlike assertion of his own virtues, while the heights of a
nobility yet unattained are clearly possible for one so dissatisfied, so
anxious for a higher life, so urgent in his questioning, What shall I do?
What lack I yet? That is what makes the difference between the Pharisee
who thanks God that he is not as other men, and this youth who has kept
all the commandments, yet would fain be other than he is, and readily
confesses that all is not enough, that some unknown act still awaits
achievement. The goodness which thinks itself upon the summit will never
toil much farther. The conscience that is really awake cannot be
satisfied, but is perplexed rather and baffled by the virtues of a dutiful
and well-ordered life. For a chasm ever yawns between the actual and the
ideal, what we have done and what we fain would do. And a spiritual glory,
undefined and perhaps undefinable, floats ever before the eyes of all men
whom the god of this world has not blinded. This inquirer honestly thinks
himself not far from the great attainment; he expects to reach it by some
transcendant act, some great deed done, and for this he has no doubt of
his own prowess, if only he were well directed. What shall I do that I may
have eternal life, not of grace, but as a debt—that I may inherit it? Thus
he awaits direction upon the road where heathenism and semi-heathen
Christianity are still toiling, and all who would purchase the gift of God
with money or toil or merit or bitterness of remorseful tears.
One easily foresees that the reply of Jesus will disappoint and humble
him, but it startles us to see him pointed back to works and to the law of
Moses.
Again, we observe that what this inquirer seeks he very earnestly believes
Jesus to have attained. And it is no mean tribute to the spiritual
elevation of our Lord, no doubtful indication that amid perils and
contradictions and on His road to the cross the peace of God sat visibly
upon His brow, that one so pure and yet so keenly aware that his own
virtue sufficed not, and that the kingdom of God was yet unattained,
should kneel in the dust before the Nazarene, and beseech this good Master
to reveal to him all his questioning. It was a strange request, and it was
granted in an unlooked for way. The demand of the Chaldean tyrant that his
forgotten dream should be interpreted was not so extravagant as this, that
the defect in an unknown career should be discovered. It was upon a lofty
pedestal indeed that this ruler placed our Lord.
And yet his question supplies the clue to that answer of Christ which has
perplexed so many. The youth is seeking for himself a purely human merit,
indigenous and underived. And the same, of course, is what he ascribes to
Jesus, to Him who is so far from claiming independent human attainment, or
professing to be what this youth would fain become, that He said, “The Son
can do nothing of Himself ... I can of Mine own self do nothing.” The
secret of His human perfection is the absolute dependence of His humanity
upon God, with Whom He is one. No wonder then that He repudiates any such
goodness as the ruler had in view.
The Socinian finds quite another meaning in His reply, and urges that by
these words Jesus denied His Deity. There is none good but one, That is
God, was a reason why He should not be called so. Jesus however does not
remonstrate absolutely against being called good, but against being thus
addressed from this ruler’s point of view, by one who regards Him as a
mere teacher and expects to earn the same title for himself. And indeed
the Socinian who appeals to this text grasps a sword by the blade. For if
it denied Christ’s divinity it must exactly to the same extent deny also
Christ’s goodness, which he admits. Now it is beyond question that Jesus
differed from all the saints in the serene confidence with which He
regarded the moral law, from the time when He received the baptism of
repentance only that He might fulfil all righteousness, to the hour when
He cried, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and although deserted, claimed God
as still His God. The saints of to-day were the penitents of yesterday.
But He has finished the work that was given Him to do. He knows that God
hears Him always, and in Him the Prince of this world hath nothing. And
yet there is none good but God. Who then is He? If this saying does not
confess what is intolerable to a reverential Socinian, what Strauss and
Renan shrank from insinuating, what is alien to the whole spirit of the
Gospels, and assuredly far from the mind of the evangelists, then it
claims all that His Church rejoices to ascribe to Christ.
Moreover Jesus does not deny even to ordinary men the possibility of being
“good.”
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good
things. Some shall hear at last the words, Well done, good and faithful
servant. The children of the kingdom are good seed among the tares.
Clearly His repugnance is not to the epithet, but to the spirit in which
it is bestowed, to the notion that goodness can spring spontaneously from
the soil of our humanity. But there is nothing here to discourage the
highest aspirations of the trustful and dependent soul, who looks for more
grace.
The doctrinal importance of this remarkable utterance is what most affects
us, who look back through the dust of a hundred controversies. But it was
very secondary at the time, and what the ruler doubtless felt most was a
chill sense of repression and perhaps despair. It was indeed the
death-knell of his false hopes. For if only God is good, how can any
mortal inherit eternal life by a good deed? And Jesus goes on to deepen
this conviction by words which find a wonderful commentary in St. Paul’s
doctrine of the function of the law. It was to prepare men for the gospel
by a challenge, by revealing the standard of true righteousness, by saying
to all who seek to earn heaven, “The man that doeth these things shall
live by them.” The attempt was sure to end in failure, for, “by the law is
the knowledge of sin.” It was exactly upon this principle that Jesus said
“Keep the commandments,” spiritualizing them, as St. Matthew tells us, by
adding to the injunctions of the second table, “Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself,” which saying, we know, briefly comprehends them
all.
But the ruler knew not how much he loved himself: his easy life had met no
searching and stern demand until now, and his answer has a tone of relief,
after the ominous words he had first heard. “Master,” and he now drops the
questionable adjective, “all these have I kept from my youth;” these never
were so burdensome that he should despair; not these, he thinks, inspired
that unsatisfied longing for some good thing yet undone. We pity and
perhaps blame the shallow answer, and the dull perception which it
betrayed. But Jesus looked on him and loved him. And well it is for us
that no eyes fully discern our weakness but those which were so often
filled with sympathetic tears. He sees error more keenly than the sharpest
critic, but he sees earnestness too. And the love which desired all souls
was attracted especially by one who had felt from his youth up the
obligation of the moral law, and had not consciously transgressed it.
This is not the teaching of those vile proverbs which declare that wild
oats must be sown if one would reap good corn, and that the greater the
sinner the greater will be the saint.
Nay, even religionists of the sensational school delight in the past
iniquities of those they honour, not only to glorify God for their
recovery, nor with the joy which is in the presence of the angels over one
sinner that repenteth, but as if these possess through their former
wickedness some passport to special service now. Yet neither in Scripture
nor in the history of the Church will it appear that men of licentious
revolt against known laws have attained to usefulness of the highest
order. The Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.
The Apostle of the Gentiles was blameless as touching the righteousness of
the law. And each Testament has a special promise for those who seek the
Lord early, who seek His kingdom and righteousness first. The undefiled
are nearest to the throne.
Now mark how endearing, how unlike the stern zeal of a propagandist, was
Christ’s tender and loving gaze; and hear the encouraging promise of
heavenly treasure, and offer of His own companionship, which presently
softened the severity of His demand; and again, when all failed, when His
followers doubtless scorned the deserter, ponder the truthful and
compassionate words, How hard it is!
Yet will Christ teach him how far the spirit of the law pierces, since the
letter has not wrought the knowledge of sin. If he loves his neighbour as
himself, let his needier neighbour receive what he most values. If he
loves God supremely, let him be content with treasure in the hands of God,
and with a discipleship which shall ever reveal to him, more and more
profoundly, the will of God, the true nobility of man, and the way to that
eternal life he seeks.
The socialist would justify by this verse a universal confiscation. But he
forgets that the spirit which seizes all is widely different from that
which gives all freely: that Zacchæus retained half his goods; that Joseph
of Arimathea was rich; that the property of Ananias was his own, and when
he sold it the price was in his own power; that St. James warned the rich
in this world only against trusting in riches instead of trusting God, who
gave them all richly, for enjoyment, although not to be confided in. Soon
after this Jesus accepted a feast from his friends in Bethany, and rebuked
Judas who complained that a costly luxury had not been sold for the
benefit of the poor. Why then is his demand now so absolute? It is simply
an application of his bold universal rule, that every cause of stumbling
must be sacrificed, be it innocent as hand or foot or eye. And affluent
indeed would be all the charities and missions of the Church in these
latter days, if the demand were obeyed in cases where it really applies,
if every luxury which enervates and all pomp which intoxicates were
sacrificed, if all who know that wealth is a snare to them corrected their
weakness by rigorous discipline, their unfruitfulness by a sharp pruning
of superfluous frondage.
The rich man neither remonstrated nor defended himself. His
self-confidence gave way. He felt that what he could not persuade himself
to do was a “good thing.” And he who came running went away sorrowful, and
with a face “lowering” like the sky which forebodes “foul weather.” That
is too often the issue of such vaunting offers. Yet feeling his weakness,
and neither resisting nor upbraiding the faithfulness which exposes him,
doubtless he was long disquieted by new desires, a strange sense of
failure and unworthiness, a clearer vision of that higher life which had
already haunted his reveries. Henceforward he had no choice but to sink to
a baser contentment, or else rise to a higher self-devotion. Who shall
say, because he failed to decide then, that he persisted for ever in the
great refusal? Yet was it a perilous and hardening experience, and it was
easier henceforward to live below his ideal, when once he had turned away
from Christ. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the inner circle of our
Lord’s immediate followers was then for ever closed against him.
Who Then Can Be Saved?
“And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto His disciples, How
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answereth
again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that
trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for
a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished exceedingly,
saying unto Him, Then who can be saved? Jesus looking upon them
saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things
are possible with God. Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have
left all, and have followed thee. Jesus said, Verily I say unto
you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or
sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake,
and for the gospel’s sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now
in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and
children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come
eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last
first.”—MARK x. 23-31 (R.V.).
As the rich man turned away with the arrow in his breast, Jesus looked
round about on His disciples. The Gospels, and especially St. Mark, often
mention the gaze of Jesus, and all who know the power of an intense and
pure nature silently searching others, the piercing intuition, the calm
judgment which sometimes looks out of holy eyes, can well understand the
reason. Disappointed love was in His look, and that compassionate protest
against harsh judgments which presently went on to admit that the
necessary demand was hard. Some, perhaps, who had begun to scorn the ruler
in his defeat, were reminded of frailties of their own, and had to ask,
Shall I next be judged? And one was among them, pilfering from the bag
what was intended for the poor, to whom that look of Christ must have been
very terrible. Unless we remember Judas, we shall not comprehend all the
fitness of the repeated and earnest warnings of Jesus against
covetousness. Never was secret sin dealt with so faithfully as his.
And now Jesus, as He looks around, says, “How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God.” But the disciples were amazed. To
the ancient Jew, from Abraham to Solomon, riches appeared to be a sign of
the Divine favour, and if the pathetic figure of Job reminded him how much
sorrow might befall the just, yet the story showed even him at the end
more prosperous than at the beginning. In the time of Jesus, the chiefs of
their religion were greedily using their position as a means of amassing
enormous fortunes. To be told that wealth was a positive hindrance on the
way to God was wonderful indeed.
When Jesus modified His utterance, it was not to correct Himself, like one
who had heedlessly gone beyond His meaning. His third speech reiterated
the first, declaring that a manifest and proverbial physical impossibility
was not so hard as for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, here or
hereafter. But He interposed a saying which both explained the first one
and enlarged its scope. “Children” He begins, like one who pitied their
inexperience and dealt gently with their perplexities, “Children, how hard
is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.” And
therefore is it hard for all the rich, since they must wrestle against
this temptation to trust in their possessions. It is exactly in this
spirit that St. James, who quoted Jesus more than any of the later writers
of Scripture, charges the rich that they be not high-minded, nor trust in
uncertain riches, but in the living God. Immediately before, Jesus had
told them how alone the kingdom might be entered, even by becoming as
little children; lowly, dependent, willing to receive all at the hands of
a superior. Would riches help them to do this? Is it easier to pray for
daily bread when one has much goods laid up for many years? Is it easier
to feel that God alone can make us drink of true pleasures as of a river,
when a hundred luxuries and indulgences lull us in sloth or allure us into
excess? Hereupon the disciples perceived what was more alarming still,
that not alone do rich men trust in riches, but all who confound
possessions with satisfaction, all who dream that to have much is to be
blessed, as if property were character. They were right. We may follow the
guidance of Mammon beckoning from afar, with a trust as idolatrous as if
we held his hand. But who could abide a principle so exacting? It was the
revelation of a new danger, and they were astonished exceedingly, saying,
Then who can be saved? Again Jesus looked upon them, with solemn but
reassuring gaze. They had learned the secret of the new life, the natural
impossibility throwing us back in helpless appeal to the powers of the
world to come. “With men it is impossible, but not with God, for all
things are possible with God.”
Peter, not easily nor long to be discouraged, now saw ground for hope. If
the same danger existed for rich and poor, then either might be encouraged
by having surmounted it, and the apostles had done what the rich man
failed to do—they had left all and followed Jesus. The claim has provoked
undue censure, as if too much were made out of a very trifling sacrifice,
a couple of boats and a paltry trade. But the objectors have missed the
point; the apostles really broke away from the service of the world when
they left their nets and followed Jesus. Their world was perhaps a narrow
one, but He Who reckoned two mites a greater offering than the total of
the gifts of many rich casting in much, was unlikely to despise a
fisherman or a publican who laid all his living upon the altar. The fault,
if fault there were, lay rather in the satisfaction with which Peter
contemplates their decision as now irrevocable and secure, so that nothing
remained except to claim the reward, which St. Matthew tells us he very
distinctly did. The young man should have had treasure in heaven: what
then should they have?
But in truth, their hardest battles with worldliness lay still before
them, and he who thought he stood might well take heed lest he fell. They
would presently unite in censuring a woman’s costly gift to Him, for Whom
they professed to have surrendered all. Peter himself would shrink from
his Master’s side. And what a satire upon this confident claim would it
have been, could the heart of Judas then and there have been revealed to
them.
The answer of our Lord is sufficiently remarkable. St. Matthew tells how
frankly and fully He acknowledged their collective services, and what a
large reward He promised, when they should sit with Him on thrones,
judging their nation. So far was that generous heart from weighing their
losses in a worldly scale, or criticizing the form of a demand which was
not all unreasonable.
But St. Mark lays exclusive stress upon other and sobering considerations,
which also St. Matthew has recorded.
There is a certain tone of egoism in the words, “Lo, we ... what shall we
have?” And Jesus corrects this in the gentlest way, by laying down such a
general rule as implies that many others will do the same, “there is no
man” whose self sacrifice shall go without its reward.
Secondary and lower motives begin to mingle with the generous ardour of
self-sacrifice as soon as it is careful to record its losses, and inquire
about its wages. Such motives are not absolutely forbidden, but they must
never push into the foremost place. The crown of glory animated and
sustained St. Paul, but it was for Christ, and not for this that he
suffered the loss of all things.
Jesus accordingly demands purity of motive. The sacrifice must not be for
ambition, even with aspirations prolonged across the frontiers of
eternity: it must be altogether “for My sake and for the gospel’s sake.”
And here we observe once more the portentous demand of Christ’s person
upon His followers. They are servants of no ethical or theological system,
however lofty. Christ does not regard Himself and them, as alike devoted
to some cause above and external to them all. To Him they are to be
consecrated, and to the gospel, which, as we have seen, is the story of
His Life, Death and Resurrection. For Him they are to break the dearest
and strongest of earthly ties. He had just proclaimed how indissoluble was
the marriage bond. No man should sever those whom God had joined. But St.
Luke informs us that to forsake even a wife for Christ’s sake, was a deed
worthy of being rewarded an hundredfold. Nor does He mention any higher
being in whose name the sacrifice is demanded. Now this is at least
implicitly the view of His own personality, which some profess to find
only in St. John.
Again, there was perhaps an undertone of complaint in Peter’s question, as
if no compensation for all their sacrifices were hitherto bestowed. What
should their compensation be? But Christ declares that losses endured for
Him are abundantly repaid on earth, in this present time, and even amid
the fires of persecution. Houses and lands are replaced by the
consciousness of inviolable shelter and inexhaustible provision. “Whither
wilt thou betake thyself to find covert?” asks the menacing cardinal; but
Luther answers, “Under the heaven of God.” And if dearest friends be
estranged, or of necessity abandoned, then, in such times of high
attainment and strong spiritual insight, membership in the Divine family
is felt to be no unreal tie, and earthly relationships are well recovered
in the vast fraternity of souls. Brethren, and sisters, and mothers, are
thus restored an hundredfold; but although a father is also lost, we do
not hear that a hundred fathers shall be given back, for in the spiritual
family that place is reserved for One.
Lastly, Jesus reminded them that the race was not yet over; that many
first shall be last and the last first. We know how Judas by transgression
fell, and how the persecuting Saul became not a whit behind the very
chiefest apostle. But this word remains for the warning and incitement of
all Christians, even unto the end of the world. There are “many” such.
Next after this warning, comes yet another prediction of His own
suffering, with added circumstances of horror. Would they who were now
first remain faithful? or should another take their bishopric?
With a darkening heart Judas heard, and made his choice.
[MARK x. 32-34. See MARK viii. 31, p. 219.]
Christ’s Cup And Baptism.
“And there came near unto him James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
saying unto him, Master, we would that Thou shouldst do for us
whatsoever we shall ask of Thee. And He said unto them, What would
ye I should do for you? And they said unto Him, Grant unto us that
we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on _Thy_ left hand, in
Thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are
ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the
baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto Him, We are
able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall
drink; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be
baptized: but to sit on My right hand or on My left hand is not
Mine to give: but _it is for them_ for whom it hath been
prepared.”—MARK x. 35-40 (R.V.).
We learn from St. Matthew that Salome was associated with her sons, and
was indeed the chief speaker in the earlier part of this incident.
And her request has commonly been regarded as the mean and shortsighted
intrigue of an ambitious woman, recklessly snatching at an advantage for
her family, and unconscious of the stern and steep road to honour in the
kingdom of Jesus.
Nor can we deny that her prayer was somewhat presumptuous, or that it was
especially unbecoming to aim at entangling her Lord in a blindfold
promise, desiring Him to do something undefined, “whatsoever we shall ask
of Thee.” Jesus was too discreet to answer otherwise than, “What would ye
that I should do for you?” And when they asked for the chief seats in the
glory that was yet to be their Master’s, no wonder that the Ten hearing of
it, had indignation. But Christ’s answer, and the gentle manner in which
He explains His refusal, when a sharp rebuke is what we would expect to
read, alike suggest that there may have been some softening,
half-justifying circumstance. And this we find in the period at which the
daring request was made.
It was on the road, during the last journey, when a panic had seized the
company; and our Lord, apparently out of the strong craving for sympathy
which possesses the noblest souls, had once more told the Twelve what
insults and cruel sufferings lay before Him. It was a time for deep
searching of hearts, for the craven to go back and walk no more with Him,
and for the traitor to think of making His own peace, at any price, with
His Master’s foes.
But this dauntless woman could see the clear sky beyond the storm. Her
sons shall be loyal, and win the prize, whatever be the hazard, and
however long the struggle.
Ignorant and rash she may have been, but it was no base ambition which
chose such a moment to declare its unshaken ardour, and claim distinction
in the kingdom for which so much must be endured.
And when the stern price was plainly stated, she and her children were not
startled, they conceived themselves able for the baptism and the cup; and
little as they dreamed of the coldness of the waters, and the bitterness
of the draught, yet Jesus did not declare them to be deceived. He said, Ye
shall indeed share these.
Nor can we doubt that their faith and loyalty refreshed His soul amid so
much that was sad and selfish. He knew indeed on what a dreadful seat He
was soon to claim His kingdom, and who should sit upon His right hand and
His left. These could not follow Him now, but they should follow Him
hereafter—one by the brief pang of the earliest apostolic martyrdom, and
the other by the longest and sorest experience of that faithless and
perverse generation.
1. Very significant is the test of worth which Jesus propounds to them:
not successful service but endurance; not the active but the passive
graces. It is not our test, except in a few brilliant and conspicuous
martyrdoms. The Church, like the world, has crowns for learning,
eloquence, energy; it applauds the force by which great things are done.
The reformer who abolishes an abuse, the scholar who defends a doctrine,
the orator who sways a multitude, and the missionary who adds a new tribe
to Christendom,—all these are sure of honour. Our loudest plaudits are not
for simple men and women, but for high station, genius, and success. But
the Lord looketh upon the heart, not the brain or the hand; He values the
worker, not the work; the love, not the achievement. And, therefore, one
of the tests He constantly applied was this, the capability for noble
endurance. We ourselves, in our saner moments, can judge whether it
demands more grace to refute a heretic, or to sustain the long inglorious
agonies of some disease which slowly gnaws away the heart of life. And
doubtless among the heroes for whom Christ is twining immortal garlands,
there is many a pale and shattered creature, nerveless and unstrung,
tossing on a mean bed, breathing in imperfect English loftier praises than
many an anthem which resounds through cathedral arches, and laying on the
altar of burnt sacrifice all he has, even his poor frame itself, to be
racked and tortured without a murmur. Culture has never heightened his
forehead nor refined his face: we look at him, but little dream what the
angels see, or how perhaps because of such an one the great places which
Salome sought were not Christ’s to give away except only to them for whom
it was prepared. For these, at last, the reward shall be His to give, as
He said, “To him that overcometh will I give to sit down with Me upon My
throne.”
2. Significant also are the phrases by which Christ expressed the
sufferings of His people. Some, which it is possible to escape, are
voluntarily accepted for Christ’s sake, as when the Virgin mother bowed
her head to slander and scorn, and said, “Behold the servant of the Lord,
be it unto me according to Thy word.” Such sufferings are a cup
deliberately raised by one’s own hand to the reluctant lips. Into other
sufferings we are plunged: they are inevitable. Malice, ill-health, or
bereavement plies the scourge; they come on us like the rush of billows in
a storm; they are a deep and dreadful baptism. Or we may say that some
woes are external, visible, we are seen to be submerged in them; but
others are like the secret ingredients of a bitter draught, which the lips
know, but the eye of the bystander cannot analyze. But there is One Who
knows and rewards; even the Man of Sorrows Who said, The cup which My
heavenly Father giveth, shall I not drink it?
Now it is this standard of excellence, announced by Jesus, which shall
give high place to many of the poor and ignorant and weak, when rank shall
perish, when tongues shall cease, and when our knowledge, in the blaze of
new revelations, shall utterly vanish away, not quenched, but absorbed
like the starlight at noon.
3. We observe again that men are not said to drink of another cup as
bitter, or to be baptized in other waters as chill, as tried their Master;
but to share His very baptism and His cup. Not that we can add anything to
His all-sufficient sacrifice. Our goodness extendeth not to God. But
Christ’s work availed not only to reconcile us to the Father, but also to
elevate and consecrate sufferings which would otherwise have been penal
and degrading. Accepting our sorrows in the grace of Christ, and receiving
Him into our hearts, then our sufferings fill up that which is lacking of
the afflictions of Christ (Col. i. 24), and at the last He will say, when
the glories of heaven are as a robe around Him, “I was hungry, naked,
sick, and in prison in the person of the least of these.”
Hence it is that a special nearness to God has ever been felt in holy
sorrow, and in the pain of hearts which, amid all clamours and tumults of
the world, are hushed and calmed by the example of Him Who was led as a
lamb to the slaughter.
And thus they are not wrong who speak of the Sacrament of Sorrow, for
Jesus, in this passage, applies to it the language of both sacraments.
It is a harmless superstition even at the worst which brings to the
baptism of many noble houses water from the stream where Jesus was
baptized by John. But here we read of another and a dread baptism,
consecrated by the fellowship of Christ, in depths which plummet never
sounded, and into which the neophyte goes down sustained by no mortal
hand.
Here is also the communion of an awful cup. No human minister sets it in
our trembling hand; no human voice asks, “Are ye able to drink the cup
that I drink?” Our lips grow pale, and our blood is chill; but faith
responds, “We are able.” And the tender and pitying voice of our Master,
too loving to spare one necessary pang, responds with the word of doom:
“The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am
baptized withal shall ye be baptized.” Even so: it is enough for the
servant that he be as his Master.
The Law Of Greatness.
“And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with
indignation concerning James and John. And Jesus called them to
Him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to
rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones
exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you; but
whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister:
and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.
For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”—MARK x. 41-45
(R.V.).
When the Ten heard that James and John had asked for the chief places in
the kingdom, they proved, by their indignation, that they also nourished
the same ambitious desires which they condemned. But Jesus called them to
Him, for it was not there that angry passions had broken out. And happy
are they who hear and obey His summons to approach, when, removed from His
purifying gaze by carelessness or wilfulness, ambition and anger begin to
excite their hearts.
Now Jesus addressed them as being aware of their hidden emulation. And His
treatment of it is remarkable. He neither condemns, nor praises it, but
simply teaches them what Christian greatness means, and the conditions on
which it may be won.
The greatness of the world is measured by authority and lordliness. Even
there it is an uncertain test; for the most real power is often wielded by
some anonymous thinker, or by some crafty intriguer, content with the
substance of authority while his puppet enjoys the trappings. Something of
this may perhaps be detected in the words, “They which are accounted to
rule over the Gentiles lord it over them.” And it is certain that “their
great ones exercise authority over them.” But the Divine greatness is a
meek and gentle influence. To minister to the Church is better than to
command it, and whoever desires to be the chief must become the servant of
all. Thus shall whatever is vainglorious and egoistic in our ambition
defeat itself; the more one struggles to be great the more he is
disqualified: even benefits rendered to others with this object will not
really be service done for them but for self; nor will any calculated
assumption of humility help one to become indeed the least, being but a
subtle assertion that he is great, and like the last place in an
ecclesiastical procession, when occupied in a self-conscious spirit. And
thus it comes to pass that the Church knows very indistinctly who are its
greatest sons. As the gift of two mites by the widow was greater than that
of large sums by the rich, so a small service done in the spirit of
perfect self-effacement,—a service which thought neither of its merit nor
of its reward, but only of a brother’s need, shall be more in the day of
reckoning than sacrifices which are celebrated by the historians and sung
by the poets of the Church. For it may avail nothing to give all my goods
to feed the poor, and my body to be burned; while a cup of cold water,
rendered by a loyal hand, shall in no wise lose its reward.
Thus Jesus throws open to all men a competition which has no charms for
flesh and blood. And as He spoke of the entry upon His service, bearing a
cross, as being the following of Himself, so He teaches us, that the
greatness of lowliness, to which we are called, is His own greatness. “For
verily the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.” Not
here, not in this tarnished and faded world, would He Who was from
everlasting with the Father have sought His own ease or honour. But the
physician came to them that were sick, and the good Shepherd followed His
lost sheep until He found it. Now this comparison proves that we also are
to carry forward the same restoring work, or else we might infer that,
because He came to minister to us, we may accept ministration with a good
heart. It is not so. We are the light and the salt of the earth, and must
suffer with Him that we may also be glorified together.
But He added another memorable phrase. He came “to give His life a ransom
in exchange for many.” It is not a question, therefore, of the inspiring
example of His life. Something has been forfeited which must be redeemed,
and Christ has paid the price. Nor is this done only on behalf of many,
but in exchange for them.
So then the crucifixion is not a sad incident in a great career; it is the
mark towards which Jesus moved, the power by which He redeemed the world.
Surely, we recognise here the echo of the prophet’s words, “Thou shalt
make His soul an offering for sin ... by His knowledge shall My righteous
servant justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities” (Isa. liii. 10,
11).
The elaborated doctrine of the atonement may not perhaps be here, much
less the subtleties of theologians who have, to their own satisfaction,
known the mind of the Almighty to perfection. But it is beyond reasonable
controversy that in this verse Jesus declared that His sufferings were
vicarious, and endured in the sinners’ stead.
Bartimæus.
“And they come to Jericho: and as He went out from Jericho, with
His disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timæus, Bartimæus,
a blind beggar, was sitting by the way side. And when he heard
that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say,
Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him,
that he should hold his peace: but he cried out the more a great
deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still,
and said, Call ye him. And they called the blind man, saying unto
him, Be of good cheer; rise, He calleth thee. And he, casting away
his garment, sprang up, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered him,
and said, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind
man said unto Him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus
said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And
straightway he received his sight, and followed Him in the
way.”—MARK x. 46-52 (R.V.).
There is no miracle in the Gospels of which the accounts are so hard to
reconcile as those of the healing of the blind at Jericho.
It is a small thing that St. Matthew mentions two blind men, while St.
Mark and St. Luke are only aware of one. The same is true of the demoniacs
at Gadara, and it is easily understood that only an eyewitness should
remember the obscure comrade of a remarkable and energetic man, who would
have spread far and wide the particulars of his own cure. The fierce and
dangerous demoniac of Gadara was just such a man, and there is ample
evidence of energy and vehemence in the brief account of Bartimæus. What
is really perplexing is that St. Luke places the miracle at the entrance
to Jericho, but St. Matthew and St. Mark, as Jesus came out of it. It is
too forced and violent a theory which speaks of an old and a new town, so
close together that one was entered and the other left at the same time.
It is possible that there were two events, and the success of one sufferer
at the entrance to the town led others to use the same importunities at
the exit. And this would not be much more remarkable than the two miracles
of the loaves, or the two miraculous draughts of fish. It is also
possible, though unlikely, that the same supplicant who began his appeals
without success when Jesus entered, resumed His entreaties, with a
comrade, at the gate by which He left.
Such difficulties exist in all the best authenticated histories:
discrepancies of the kind arise continually between the evidence of the
most trustworthy witnesses in courts of justice. And the student who is
humble as well as devout will not shut his eyes against facts, merely
because they are perplexing, but will remember that they do nothing to
shake the solid narrative itself.
As we read St. Mark’s account, we are struck by the vividness of the whole
picture, and especially by the robust personality of the blind man. The
scene is neither Jerusalem, the city of the Pharisees nor Galilee, where
they have persistently sapped the popularity of Jesus. Eastward of the
Jordan, He has spent the last peaceful and successful weeks of His brief
and stormy career, and Jericho lies upon the borders of that friendly
district. Accordingly something is here of the old enthusiasm: a great
multitude moves along with His disciples to the gates, and the rushing
concourse excites the curiosity of the blind son of Timæus. So does many a
religious movement lead to inquiry and explanation far and wide. But when
he, sitting by the way, and unable to follow, knows that the great Healer
is at hand, but only in passing, and for a moment, his interest suddenly
becomes personal and ardent, and “he began to cry out” (the expression
implies that his supplication, beginning as the crowd drew near, was not
one utterance but a prolonged appeal), “and to say, Jesus, Thou Son of
David, have mercy on me.” To the crowd his outcry seemed to be only an
intrusion upon One Who was too rapt, too heavenly, to be disturbed by the
sorrows of a blind beggar. But that was not the view of Bartimæus, whose
personal affliction gave him the keenest interest in those verses of the
Old Testament which spoke of opening the blind eyes. If he did not
understand their exact force as prophecies, at least they satisfied him
that his petition could not be an insult to the great Prophet of Whom just
such actions were told, for Whose visit he had often sighed, and Who was
now fast going by, perhaps for ever. The picture is one of great
eagerness, bearing up against great discouragement. We catch the spirit of
the man as he inquires what the multitude means, as the epithet of his
informants, Jesus of Nazareth, changes on his lips into Jesus, Thou Son of
David, as he persists, without any vision of Christ to encourage him, and
amid the rebukes of many, in crying out the more a great deal, although
pain is deepening every moment in his accents, and he will presently need
cheering. The ear of Jesus is quick for such a call, and He stops. He does
not raise His own voice to summon him, but teaches a lesson of humanity to
those who would fain have silenced the appeal of anguish, and says, Call
ye him. And they obey with a courtier-like change of tone, saying, Be of
good cheer, rise, He calleth thee. And Bartimæus cannot endure even the
slight hindrance of his loose garment, but flings it aside, and rises and
comes to Jesus, a pattern of the importunity which prays and never faints,
which perseveres amid all discouragement, which adverse public opinion
cannot hinder. And the Lord asks of him almost exactly the same question
as recently of James and John, What wilt thou that I should do for thee?
But in his reply there is no aspiring pride: misery knows how precious are
the common gifts, the every-day blessings which we hardly pause to think
about; and he replies, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. It is a glad
and eager answer. Many a petition he had urged in vain; and many a small
favour had been discourteously bestowed; but Jesus, Whose tenderness loves
to commend while He blesses, shares with him, so to speak, the glory of
his healing, as He answers, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. By
thus fixing his attention upon his own part in the miracle, so utterly
worthless as a contribution, but so indispensable as a condition, Jesus
taught him to exercise hereafter the same gift of faith.
“Go thy way,” He said. And Bartimæus “followed Him on the road.” Happy is
that man whose eyes are open to discern, and his heart prompt to follow,
the print of those holy feet.