'Face like a flint' seems to be quoted in Luke ix. 51; 'Steadily set
His face.' The whole story of the Gospels gives the one impression of a
life steadfast in its great resolve. There are no traces of His ever
faltering in His purpose, none of His ever suffering Himself to be
diverted from it, no parentheses and no digressions. There are no
blunders either. But what a contrast in this respect to all other
lives! Mark's Gospel, which is eminently the gospel of the Servant, is
full of energy and of this inflexible resolve, which speak in such
sayings as 'I must be about My Father's business'; 'I must work the
works of My Father while it is day.' That last journey, during which He
'steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,' is but a type of the
whole. Christ's life was a continuous or rather a continually repeated
effort.
This inflexible resolve is associated in Him with characteristics not
usually allied with it. The gentleness of Christ is so obvious in His
character that little needs to be said to point it out. To the
influence of His character more than to any other cause may be traced
the change in the perspective, so to speak, of Virtue, which
characterises modern notions of perfection as contrasted with antique
ones. Contrast the Greek and Roman type with the mediaeval ascetic, or
with the philanthropic type of modern times. Carlyle's ideal is
retrograde and an anachronism. Women and patient sufferers find example
in Him. But we have in Jesus Christ, too, the highest example of all
the stronger and robuster virtues, the more distinctly heroic,
masculine; and that not merely passive firmness of endurance such as an
American Indian will show in torments, but active firmness which
presses on to its goal, and, immovably resolute, will not be diverted
by anything. In Him we see a resolved Will and a gentle loving Heart in
perfect accord. That is a wonderful combination. We often find that
such firmness is developed at the expense of indifference to other
people. It is like a war chariot, or artillery train, that goes
crashing across the field, though it be over shrieking men and broken
bones, and the wheels splash in blood. Resolved firmness is often
accompanied with self-absorption which makes it gloomy, and with narrow
limitations. Such men gather all their powers together to secure a
certain end, and do it by shutting the eyes of their mind to everything
but the one object, like the painter, who blocks up his studio window
to get a top light, or as a mad bull lowers his head and blindly rushes
on.
There is none of all this in Christ's firmness. He was able at every
moment to give His whole sympathy to all who needed it, to take in all
that lay around Him, and His resolute concentration of Himself on His
work made Him none the less perfect in all which goes to make up
complete manhood. Not only was Christ's firmness that of a fixed Will
and a most loving Heart, like one of these 'rocking stones,' whose
solid mass can be set vibrating by a poising bird, but the fixed Will
came from the loving Heart. The very compassion and pity of His nature
led to that resolved continuance in His path of redeeming love, though
suffering and mockery waited for Him at each turn.
And so He is the Joshua, the Warrior-King, as well as the Priest. That
Face, ever ready to kindle into pity, to melt into tenderness, to
express every shade of tender feeling, was 'set as a flint.' That Eye,
ever brimming with tears, was ever fixed on one goal. That Character is
the type of all strength and of all gentleness.