He shall be great in the sight of the Lord.'--LUKE i. 15.
So spake the angel who foretold the birth of John the Baptist. 'In
the sight of the Lord'--then men are not on a dead level in His
eyes. Though He is so high and we are so low, the country beneath
Him that He looks down upon is not flattened to Him, as it is to us
from an elevation, but there are greater and smaller men in His
sight, too. No epithet is more misused and misapplied than that of
'a great man.' It is flung about indiscriminately as ribbons and
orders are by some petty State. Every little man that makes a noise
for a while gets it hung round his neck. Think what a set they are
that are gathered in the world's Valhalla, and honoured as the
world's great men! The mass of people are so much on a level, and
that level is so low, that an inch above the average looks gigantic.
But the tallest blade of grass gets mown down by the scythe, and
withers as quickly as the rest of its green companions, and goes its
way into the oven as surely. There is the world's false estimate of
greatness and there is God's estimate. If we want to know what the
elements of true greatness are, we may well turn to the life of this
man, of whom the prophecy went before him that he should be 'great
in the sight of the Lord.' That is gold that will stand the test.
We may remember, too, that Jesus Christ, looking back on the career
to which the angel was looking forward, endorsed the prophecy and
declared that it had become a fact, and that 'of them that were born
of women there had not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.' With
the illumination of His eulogium we may turn to this life, then, and
gather some lessons for our own guidance.
I. First, we note in John unwavering and immovable firmness and
courage.
'What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with
the wind?' Nay! an iron pillar that stood firm whatsoever winds blew
against it. This, as I take it, is in some true sense the basis of
all moral greatness--that a man should have a grip which cannot be
loosened, like that of the cuttle-fish with all its tentacles round
its prey, upon the truths that dominate his being and make him a
hero. 'If you want me to weep,' said the old artist-poet, 'there must
be tears in your own eyes.' If you want me to believe, you yourself
must be aflame with conviction which has penetrated to the very
marrow of your bones. And so, as I take it, the first requisite
either for power with others, or for greatness in a man's own
development of character, is that there shall be this unwavering
firmness of grasp of clearly-apprehended truths, and unflinching
boldness of devotion to them.
I need not remind you how magnificently, all through the life of our
typical example, this quality was stamped upon every utterance and
every act. It reached its climax, no doubt, in his bearding Herod
and Herodias. But moral characteristics do not reach a climax unless
there has been much underground building to bear the lofty pinnacle;
and no man, when great occasions come to him, develops a courage and
an unwavering confidence which are strange to his habitual life.
There must be the underground building; and there must have been
many a fighting down of fears, many a curbing of tremors, many a
rebuke of hesitations and doubts in the gaunt, desert-loving
prophet, before he was man enough to stand before Herod and say, 'It
is not lawful for thee to have her.'
No doubt there is much to be laid to the account of temperament, but
whatever their temperament may be, the way to this unwavering
courage and firm, clear ring of indubitable certainty, is open to
every Christian man and woman; and it is our own fault, our own sin,
and our own weakness, if we do not possess these qualities.
Temperament! what on earth is the good of our religion if it is not
to modify and govern our temperament? Has a man a right to jib on
one side, and give up the attempt to clear the fence, because he
feels that in his own natural disposition there is little power to
take the leap? Surely not. Jesus Christ came here for the very
purpose of making our weakness strong, and if we have a firm hold
upon Him, then, in the measure in which His love has permeated our
whole nature, will be our unwavering courage, and out of weakness we
shall be made strong.
Of course the highest type of this undaunted boldness and unwavering
firmness of conviction is not in John and his like. He presented
strength in a lower form than did the Master from whom his strength
came. The willow has a beauty as well as the oak. Firmness is not
obstinacy; courage is not rudeness. It is possible to have the iron
hand in the velvet glove, not of etiquette-observing politeness, but
of a true considerateness and gentleness. They who are likest Him
that was 'meek and lowly in heart,' are surest to possess the
unflinching resolve which set His face like a flint, and enabled Him
to go unhesitatingly and unrecalcitrant to the Cross itself.
Do not let us forget, either, that John's unwavering firmness
wavered; that over the clear heaven of his convictions there did
steal a cloud; that he from whom no violence could wrench his faith
felt it slipping out of his grasp when his muscles were relaxed in
the dungeon; and that he sent 'from the prison'--which was the
excuse for the message--to ask the question, 'After all, art Thou He
that should come?'
Nor let us forget that it was that very moment of tremulousness
which Jesus Christ seized, in order to pour an unstinted flood of
praise for the firmness of his convictions, on the wavering head of
the Forerunner. So, if we feel that though the needle of our compass
points true to the pole, yet when the compass-frame is shaken, the
needle sometimes vibrates away from its true direction, do not let
us be cast down, but believe that a merciful allowance is made for
human weakness. This man was great; first, because he had such
dauntless courage and firmness that, over his headless corpse in the
dungeon at Machaerus, might have been spoken what the Regent Moray
said over John Knox's coffin, 'Here lies one that never feared the
face of man.'
II. Another element of true greatness that comes nobly out in the
life with which I am dealing is its clear elevation above worldly
good.
That was the second point that our Lord's eulogium signalised. 'What
went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A man clothed in soft
raiment?' But you would have gone to a palace, if you had wanted to
see that, not to the reed-beds of Jordan. As we all know, in his
life, in his dress, in his food, in the aims that he set before him,
he rose high above all regard for the debasing and perishable
sweetnesses that appeal to flesh, and are ended in time. He lived
conspicuously for the Unseen. His asceticism belonged to his age,
and was not the highest type of the virtue which it expressed. As I
have said about his courage, so I say about his self-denial--Christ's
is of a higher sort. As the might of gentleness is greater than the
might of such strength as John's, so the asceticism of John is lower
than the self-government of the Man that came eating and drinking.
But whilst that is true, I seek, dear brethren, to urge this old
threadbare lesson, always needed, never needed more than amidst the
senselessly luxurious habits of this generation, needed in few
places more than in a great commercial centre like that in which we
live, that one indispensable element of true greatness and elevation
of character is that, not the prophet and the preacher alone, but
every one of us, should live high above these temptations of gross
and perishable joys, should
'Scorn delights and live laborious days.'
No man has a right to be called 'great' if his aims are small. And
the question is, not as modern idolatry of intellect, or, still
worse, modern idolatry of success, often makes it out to be, Has he
great capacities? or has he won great prizes? but has he greatly
used himself and his life? If your aims are small you will never be
great; and if your highest aims are but to get a good slice of this
world's pudding--no matter what powers God may have given you to
use--you are essentially a small man.
I remember a vigorous and contemptuous illustration of St. Bernard's,
who likens a man that lives for these perishable delights which John
spurned, to a spider spinning a web out of his own substance, and
catching in it nothing but a wretched prey of poor little flies.
Such a one has surely no right to be called a great man. Our aims
rather than our capacity determine our character, and they who
greatly aspire after the greatest things within the reach of men,
which are faith, hope, charity, and who, for the sake of effecting
these aspirations, put their heels upon the head of the serpent and
suppress the animal in their nature, these are the men 'great in the
sight of the Lord.'
III. Another element of true greatness, taught us by our type, is
fiery enthusiasm for righteousness.
You may think that that has little to do with greatness. I believe
it has everything to do with it, and that the difference between men
is very largely to be found here, whether they flame up into the
white heat of enthusiasm for the things that are right, or whether
the only things that can kindle them into anything like earnestness
and emotion are the poor, shabby things of personal advantage. I
need not remind you how, all through John's career, there burned,
unflickering and undying, that steadfast light; how he brought to
the service of the plainest teaching of morality a fervour of
passion and of zeal almost unexampled and magnificent. I need not
remind you how Jesus Christ Himself laid His hand upon this
characteristic, when He said of him that 'he was a light kindled and
shining.' But I would lay upon all our hearts the plain, practical
lesson that, if we keep in that tepid region of lukewarmness which
is the utmost approach to tropical heat that moral and religious
questions are capable of raising in many of us, good-bye to all
chance of being 'great in the sight of the Lord.' We hear a great
deal about the 'blessings of moderation,' the 'dangers of
fanaticism,' and the like. I venture to think that the last thing
which the moral consciousness of England wants today is a
refrigerator, and that what it needs a great deal more than that is,
that all Christian people should be brought face to face with this
plain truth--that their religion has, as an indispensable part of
it, 'a Spirit of burning,' and that if they have not been baptized
in fire, there is little reason to believe that they have been
baptized with the Holy Ghost.
I long that you and myself may be aflame for goodness, may be
enthusiastic over plain morality, and may show that we are so by our
daily life, by our rebuking the opposite, if need be, even if it
take us into Herod's chamber, and make Herodias our enemy for life.
IV. Lastly, observe the final element of greatness in this man-absolute
humility of self-abnegation before Jesus Christ.
There is nothing that I know in biography anywhere more beautiful,
more striking, than the contrast between the two halves of the
character and demeanour of the Baptist; how, on the one side, he
fronts all men undaunted and recognises no superior, and how neither
threats nor flatteries nor anything else will tempt him to step one
inch beyond the limitations of which he is aware, nor to abate one
inch of the claims which he urges; and on the other hand how, like
some tall cedar touched by the lightning's hand, he falls prone
before Jesus Christ and says, 'He must increase, and I must
decrease': 'A man can receive nothing except it be given him of
God.' He is all boldness on one side; all submission and dependence
on the other.
You remember how, in the face of many temptations, that attitude was
maintained. The very message which he had to carry was full of
temptations to a self-seeking man to assert himself. You remember
the almost rough 'No!' with which, reiteratedly, he met the
suggestions of the deputation from Jerusalem that sought to induce
him to say that he was more than he knew himself to be, and how he
stuck by that infinitely humble and beautiful saying, 'I am a
voice'--that is all. You remember how the whole nation was in a kind
of conspiracy to tempt him to assert himself, and was ready to break
into a flame if he had dropped a spark, for all men were musing in
their heart whether he was the Christ or not,' and all the lawless
and restless elements would have been only too glad to gather round
him, if he had declared himself the Messiah. Remember how his own
disciples came to him, and tried to play upon his jealousy and to
induce him to assert himself: 'Master, He whom thou didst baptize'--and
so didst give Him the first credentials that sent men on His
course--'has outstripped thee, and all men are coming to Him.' And
you remember the lovely answer that opened such depths of unexpected
tenderness in the rough nature: 'He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom heareth the voice; and that
is enough to fill my cup with joy to the very brim.' And what
conceptions of Jesus Christ had John, that he thus bowed his lofty
crest before Him, and softened his heart into submission almost
abject? He knew Him to be the coming Judge, with the fan in His
hand, who could baptize with fire, and he knew Him to be 'the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' Therefore he fell
before Him.
Brethren, we shall not be 'great in the sight of the Lord' unless we
copy that example of utter self-abnegation before Jesus Christ.
Thomas a Kempis says somewhere, 'He is truly great who is small in
his own sight, and thinks nothing of the giddy heights of worldly
honour.' You and I know far more of Jesus Christ than John the
Baptist did. Do we bow ourselves before Him as he did? The Source
from which he drew his greatness is open to us all. Let us begin
with the recognition of the Lamb of God that takes away the world's
sin, and with it ours. Let the thought of what He is, and what He
has done for us, bow us in unfeigned submission. Let it shatter all
dreams of our own importance or our own desert. The vision of the
Lamb of God, and it only, will crush in our hearts the serpent's
eggs of self-esteem and self-regard.
Then, let our closeness to Jesus Christ, and our experience of His
power, kindle in us the fiery enthusiasm with which He baptizes all
His true servants, and let it because we know the sweetnesses that
excel, take from us all liability to be tempted away by the vulgar
and coarse delights of earth and of sense. Let us keep ourselves
clear of the babble that is round about us, and be strong because we
grasp Christ's hand.
I have been speaking about no characteristic which may not be
attained by any man, woman, or child amongst us. 'The least in the
kingdom of heaven' may be greater than John. It is a poor ambition
to seek to be _called_ 'great.' It is a noble desire to _be_ 'great
in the sight of the Lord.' And if we will keep ourselves close to
Jesus Christ that will be attained. It will matter very little what
men think of us, if at last we have praise from the lips of Him who
poured such praise on His servant. We may, if we will. And then it will
not hurt us though our names on earth be dark and our memories perish
from among men.
'Of so much fame in heaven expect the meed.'