The Bethlehem Birth.
There were four of these experiences in our Lord's life. At the very
beginning came _the Bethlehem Birth_. That meant for Him a birth out of
the usual course of nature, yet working within nature's usual processes.
It was something more-than-the-natural coming down into the natural. The
power of the Holy Spirit came upon the pure gentle maiden of Nazareth and
a new human life was begotten by Him within her, and in due course came to
the maturity of birth. This was a distinctive thing with Jesus.
Now, in quite a different sense, but in a very real sense, there will be
for us, too, a Bethlehem Birth. The Holy Spirit will come in and begin a
new life within us. This is the only beginning of the "Follow Me" life for
any of us. There's a something on the Spirit's part before there can be a
beginning on my part. Yet that hardly tells the whole story. My part is
really first; I open the door for Him to come in. When I accept Jesus as
my Saviour, that's opening the door. The Spirit comes in and begins the
new life within me. And yet there's another first before that first act of
mine. He woos me with His patient, tender love. That is the first first.
Then I open the door: at once He comes in, and does the thing which only
He can do. So begins the "Follow Me" life. This is the real, the only
beginning.
And yet there's more here of the practical sort than we have thought of,
most of us. It means that there is within us a life higher than the
natural life, and this higher life is to _be_ higher, it is to be the
_controlling_ life. It is to hold the upper hand over the natural life.
The control is to be from above. That is to say, the motives and desires
of the upper life are to be dominant in my daily round. It is the
Father-pleasing life as contrasted with the natural life, of which we
talked a while ago. Wherever the two come in conflict, the upper is to
rule.
Now, I know this rather runs across the grain of a good deal of our
so-called Christian life. There are a good many people who, let us really
believe, have been "born again," to use the familiar phrase, yet they seem
to have stayed in the being-born stage, the infancy stage. That which was
"born again" in them seems not to have been developed. It has never been
allowed to grow. The under life has been given the upper hand, and the
upper life kept strictly down. The salt isn't salty. The common round of
life is seasoned wholly by the old seasoning.
Our Lord's "Follow Me" becomes a radical, decisive thing at the very
start. It means that we will allow this new life of the Spirit to grow
into lusty vigour, and to become the controlling life So it will be the
chief thing. All the life shall be directed and controlled _from above._
This is a result that will come of itself if we really follow. Obedience,
and back of that the quiet time on the knees with the Book, will give food
and air and growing space to this new life, and its growth will crowd down
the other.
The Jordan Baptism of Power.
Then there was a _Jordan Baptism of Power_ in our Lord's life. This stood
at the beginning of His leadership, His life-work, His service among men.
As He came up out of the Jordan waters He stood waiting in prayer. He was
expecting something. His whole being was absorbed in the expectancy of
what had been promised.[55] And that expectancy was not disappointed. None
that wait on God shall be put to confusion by any disappointment.[56] The
blue above was rift through, the Holy Spirit as a gentle dove came, and
remained upon Him, and the Father's voice of pleased approval spoke to His
grateful, obedient heart. From that time the whole control of His life was
absolutely in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
This does not mean an inert passivity on Jesus' part; it meant a strong,
intelligent yielding to the Holy Spirit. It does not mean that His natural
faculties of mind and will and heart were held down, not to be used. It
means that they were actively, studiously used in discerning the Holy
Spirit's leading, and in doing as He directed. And it means that so there
came a fulness of life, an increasing life, into His faculties, mind and
will and heart. Our Lord Jesus used all His powers in yielding to the
inspiration and direction and control of the Holy Spirit, keeping ever
open to His suggestion, and making that suggestion the law of His own
action.
And the Spirit of Omnipotence, working with the gentleness of a dove,
breathed upon those yielded powers, and breathed through them, even as had
been planned with the first breathing of this sort, in Eden. So from the
Wilderness clear up to the last Olivet command to the disciples,
everything was done at the bidding, the direction of this Spirit. And so
the almighty power was breathed into every word and action and bit of
suffering. The one key-note of the Master's action was obedience; the
result was the flooding of the Spirit's omnipotence through His obedient
faculties and life.
Now, _as we follow_, this same sort of experience will be ours. What a
tremendous thing to say! Yet the road was being beaten down for _our
feet_. The Son of Man was simply showing to His brother-men the road we
were all meant to go, showing it by going in it. All the power that came
into Jesus' life will come into ours, _if_ He is given His way. For the
Holy Spirit is not measured out, either to Him or to us,[57] but poured
out without stint.[58] As we follow we shall be led along behind the Man
going before.
There will need to be instruction, for we're so new to this road. And
human teachers are sent by the Holy Spirit to help us understand, teachers
in print, and teachers in shoes. There will need to be the initial act of
full surrender to the Lord Jesus as Lord indeed, for most of us have been
going another way than this. There will need to be a house-cleaning time,
for we have let in so much of another sort.
A soft, but very honest, searching light will come flooding in through the
sky-light windows. And as we instinctively go to our knees and faces
because of what that light brings to light, there will be a wondrous
cleansing, both by blood and by fire. Then will come a filling of our very
being by this wondrous Spirit of God.
How shall we know this filling, do you ask? There will be a quiet, deep
peace, at times a great joy that sings, but ever the deep peace that
_holds_ you, a new hunger for the old Book, and a new soft light on its
pages. There will be an inner drawing to talk with God, and an intense
desire to please Him, to find out what He wants you to do, and then to do
it.
There will come other things too, of a less pleasant sort, temptation
will come anew, and a sense--sometimes very acute--of sin, a feeling that
there's a something within you fighting you, the new you. There will be an
increased sensitiveness to sin, and an intense hatred of it. This is what
the filling means. These things will tell you that He, the Spirit, has
taken possession of what you surrendered, and that He is now at work
within. These are His finger-prints.
Then there will be the outflowing side of this filling. A passion that all
men may know this compassionate God, will come as a fire burning in your
bones. Its flames will envelop and go through everything you are and have
and can do. But under all will be the passion for pleasing the Lord Jesus.
Obedience will become the chief thing, holding everything else in check,
obedience to Him, pleasing Him, doing His will.
The Bethlehem Birth is the _beginning_ of a new, a supernatural life
within; _this_ will be the actual life itself, in full vigour and power.
That is the supernatural birth, this the supernatural life. That is, there
is at work within you, very quietly and simply, a power more than the
natural, working through the natural order, and sometimes upsetting what
we may have grown to think of as the natural order. This is the Jordan
Baptism of Power, the Holy Spirit taking charge, and you living a
Spirit-controlled life. There's a new sign hung out over your life, "this
life is being conducted under new management." You won't say it; it won't
be shouted out. It'll be louder yet. Your _life_ will be telling it
continually.
Power Is in the Current.
The word to emphasize here is _control_. You will find new meanings, that
you had not thought of, gradually working out of it. If the Holy Spirit
had control of us as He had of--Philip, for instance. He picked Philip up
out of the midst of the Samaritan crowd, where he was the human centre of
things, and put him down away off here in the desert,--_strange
contrast!_--and with one lone traveller, greater contrast yet![59] If He
were free to pick you and me up like that, out of these surroundings,
congenial and pleasant, and set us down where we had no thought of going,
and never would have gone of our own choice, and we sing as we are picked
up, _and_ keep on singing where we find ourselves amidst the uncongenial
perhaps, the strange, the unprecedented and hard,--_if_ He were free to
control like that these days, there would be a present-day Pentecost
beside which the Acts-Pentecost was but the beginnings of the throbbings
of power.
There are some peculiarities of this "Follow Me" road here. There comes a
strangely new sense of proportion. As you follow close up behind the Man
ahead, you will grow _smaller_, and He will grow _larger_. No, that's not
an accurate statement; you won't _grow_ any smaller, you will only find
out how small you are. He won't grow any larger, you will simply be
finding out, and then finding out more, how large He is. It'll seem
strange to most of us, finding out our real size, or lack of the size we
always supposed we were. But it will come with a great awing,
heart-subduing sense, to find how marvellous in size this great Man is;
and yet He is our brother, as well as so immensely more.
You come to find out that power, that thing that used to be so much talked
about, and defined, and yet chiefly wondered about, that power is a matter
of position. The man close in behind the Lord Jesus doesn't need to be
concerned about power. In fact he isn't concerned about it, only concerned
with keeping close in touch. All the rest comes without our being
concerned. It comes from him, the Man ahead. There is far more power, the
very power of God, softly flowing and flooding its way in and through and
out, than you are ever conscious of. Others will know more of the power
than you. You are thinking about the Man ahead, keeping in touch, pleasing
Him. Obedience has become a new word to you. It's the music of keeping
step, keeping step with Him.
Have you noticed how much the current of the stream will do for you if you
are out in a row-boat? All you need to do is to keep up enough motion to
hold the boat within the sweep of the current. Then your chief task is
_steering_. You're not concerned about power; only about the steering.
There's more power in the current than you can ever use. Your one concern
is to keep out of the shallows and sucking side-eddies, away from snag and
rock, and _in the current._ The power's in the current. Right steering
brings all that power to bear on your little boat.
Now, power here is a matter of steering, so far as our part is concerned.
We steer to get into the current of our Lord Jesus' will, and, by His
grace, we use all our will power in _keeping_ in that current, and out of
the shallows and suction-eddies at the side. The Lord Jesus, once spit
upon and crucified, now seated "far above all rule, and authority, and
power, and dominion, and every name that is named," and _at work on earth
through His Holy Spirit_,--this Lord Jesus, _free to do as He
chooses_,--this is power. _He_ is power.
Power is the Lord Jesus in action, and the action is always through some
man's life. We steer so as to keep in touch. He acts through the man in
touch. And the hungry, needy crowds know a something coming to them, with
irresistible grateful sweep.
Living a Nazareth Life.
There was a third experience in this group. Our Lord Jesus lived _the
Nazareth Life_. In actual order of time this came before the baptism of
power. I have changed the order here, and named it third simply for the
practical help in the change. With the Lord Jesus, the whole of the life
was under the sway of the Holy Spirit from birth on, through the earliest
conscious years, and all the years. With us, in actual experience, we are
all free to confess that it has not been so from our Spirit-birth on.
That baptism of power at Jordan was without doubt a baptism of power for
leadership and service. Service and leadership ever need the time of
special waiting on God, and the fresh anointing by the Holy Spirit's
touch, the fresh consciousness of Himself, as the only source of power in
the service and leadership.
In our actual experience the Holy Spirit, coming in power, has had much to
do in changing our habits, ourselves, and our lives, as well as in our
service. There has been so much service that has not been backed up by the
life, that many have come to feel, and to feel very deeply, that the power
in service must have its roots in the human side, deep down in the daily
habit of life. With our Lord Jesus that Jordan experience made no
difference of this sort in His life. There was nothing needing to be
changed. That Nazareth life had been lived continuously under the control
of the Holy Spirit.
Look a moment at that Nazareth life of His. It means simply a commonplace,
treadmill round of life lived under the hallowing touch of the Father's
presence. This was according to the original plan. It is God's presence
recognized that hallows what is common. It is the absence of His presence,
that is, the leaving of Him out, that makes common things common; that is,
it makes the familiar thing and round _seem_ and _feel_ common. It's the
unhallowed and unhallowing touch of the selfish, of sin, that makes things
seem common, in the sense of not being holy and sweet and pure and
refreshing. Sin makes things grow stale to you. Selfishness affects your
eye, the way things look to you. God's presence recognized keeps things
fresh. His touch upon us, ever afresh, makes us fresh. Everything we touch
and see is touched by a God-freshened hand, and seen through a
God-freshened eye.
Now Jesus lived this commonplace round of life, and lived it under the
ever-freshening touch of His Father's presence. It isn't the thing you do,
nor the things that surround you, that make your life, but the spirit that
breathes out of you in the midst of the things. It's the _you_ in you that
makes the life, regardless of surroundings. The outer things are the
accidents, you, the spirit that breathes out of you,--this is the real
thing.
Jesus _lived_ it. That is the tremendous fact that Nazareth stands for.
He lived what He taught, and He lived it first, and He lived it far more
deeply and really than it could be taught to others. This was the basis of
those few service years. Nazareth lies under the Galilean ministry. There
were thirty years under the three-and-a-half-years. And the thirty years
crop up into and out of the three-and-a-half. The life lived was the great
fact at work, as the Man went about doing good. The hidden life of
Nazareth lies open in the Galilean ministry.
When you are reading the wonderful works among the needy throngs, you are
reading the biography of the Nazareth years, in their outer reach. The
life you live is the thing that tells! This is the meaning of the thirty
hidden years. The Father said, "My Son shall spend most of His years down
there _living_, just living a true, simple Eden life; living with Me in
the midst of home and carpenter shop and village." This is what the world
needs so much to be taught, how to live. And the teaching must be by
living, teaching by action. The message must be lived.
If we men might live Jesus! That's what the world needs. At one of the
smaller meetings of the Edinburgh Conference, in 1910, a Christian
gentleman from India, native of that land, said, "We don't need more
Bibles in India." And then to this surprising statement, he added, "We
have enough Bibles. If the Christians in India would _live the Bible_,
India would be converted." And I thought, that will do for America, and
England, and for all the world. _Jesus lived it_. As a man in His
decisions and actions, His habits and daily round, He lived the truth.
The story is told of a missionary in some part of Africa who had not had
much success in his work. He was in the habit of explaining some portion
of the New Testament to the people at His house. One day the portion
contained the words, "give to him that asketh thee, and from him that
would borrow of thee turn thou not away."[60] The people asked him if this
meant what it said. He told them that it did. One of them said he would
like to have the table, pointing to it; another asked for a chair, another
for the bed, and so on. The missionary was rather startled at such literal
taking of his teaching. He told them to come again on the morrow, and he
would give his answer.
When they had gone, he and his wife had rather a heart-searching time
together. They felt they had not reached the hearts of the people yet. But
to do as they asked meant real sacrifice of a very personal sort. At last
with much prayer they decided to meet the people where they had opened the
way. And so the next day they gave their answer, and soon the house was
literally bare of all its furnishings. And that night they slept on the
floor, yet with a sweet peace in their hearts in the midst of this strange
experience.
The next day the people came back, carrying the furniture. They had
really been testing these new-comers. "Now," they said, "we believe you.
You _live_ your Book. We want you to teach us." And with open hearts they
listened anew to the Gospel story, and many of them accepted Christ.
The little incident reveals the unity of the race. Those Africans said
what England and America and all the world is saying, "_Live it_." Is your
religion _livable_? What the world needs to-day is _a Jesus lived_, not
simply taught, nor preached about, but lived in the power of the Holy
Spirit. How the fire, the holy fire, of that sort of thing would catch and
spread! Oh, yes, it might mean sleeping on the bare floor! That's what
living-it means, the actual life overriding any mere thing that stands in
the way.
Live It.
I stood one day on the abrupt edge of a little hill in a Southern Japanese
city. There, in a great tree hanging out over the edge, had hung the bell
that called together the faithful retainers of the lord of the province,
when they were needed. There, nearly thirty years ago, a little band of
Japanese youth, of noble families, had gone out at break of day one
Sabbath morning, and solemnly covenanted to follow the Lord Jesus, and to
devote their lives to making Him known throughout their land. Boys still
in their tender teens most of them were. And that covenant was not
lightly made, for already the fires of persecution had been kindled, and
these fires burned fiercely but could not compete with the fire in their
hearts. And as one goes up and down the island empire of the Pacific
to-day, he can find traces of their lives cropping up everywhere, like
gold veins above the soil.
And as I sought to trace the hidden springs of the power at work behind
all this, I found it was in the _life_ of one young man, a simple, holy
life burning with a passion for Jesus. In this life could be found the
kindling of the tender flames burning so hotly in these young hearts. He
was a young American officer engaged, by the feudal lord of the province,
to teach military tactics and English. He dared not teach Christianity;
that would have meant instant dismissal. So for two years he _lived_ the
message, so simply and lovingly that he won the love of his pupils. Then
they came Sundays to his house to hear him read the English Bible, because
they loved him. As he prayed the tears would run down his face, and they
laughed to think a _man_ would weep, but they came because they loved him.
He really _loved them into the Christian life_. I was reminded of the line
in Hezekiah's song of thanksgiving after his illness, "Thou hast loved my
soul up from the pit."[61] This young teacher _lived his pupils to the
Lord Jesus_. The latter part of his life was a sad one, but nothing can
change the record of those earlier years.
I saw recently a news item telling how many million copies of the Bible
are being printed every year. The item slurringly remarked that the
statisticians didn't seem concerned yet with figuring up how many of them
were read. But, I thought, what these Bibles need is a new binding. This
Bible I carry is bound in the best sealskin, with kid-lining. It is
supposed to be the best binding for hard wear. But there's a much better
sort of leather than that for Bible binding; I mean _shoe leather_. The
people want the Bible bound in shoe leather. When we tread this Bible out
in our daily walk, when what we are becomes an illustrated copy of the
Bible, the greatest revival the earth has known will come. With utmost
reverence let me say that our Lord Jesus wants to come and walk around in
our shoes, and live inside our garments, and touch men through us.
I remember something in my early Christian life that was a sore temptation
to me. There were some Christian leaders who had helped me greatly by
their preaching and writings. Then it chanced that I was thrown into
personal contact with them, now one, now another. And I had a sore
disappointment. It's hard to find that your idol has clay feet. It's
doubtless wrong to have idols. Yet youth is the time of such idol worship.
The disappointment was a very sore one. Then out of it I was led to see
that the Master never disappoints. And there was a drawing nearer to
Himself alone.
And then a questioning arose: was some one perhaps looking at me? And a
burning desire came to be more in life than in speech, not only for the
sake of some one, perchance looking; but for the sake of that other One,
the Man with eyes of flame, His looking. I need hardly tell you that it
has been my blessed privilege to have had personal contact with leaders
whose fragrant lives are so much more than word or act.
The Nazareth life means that the Lord Jesus lived His message, amid
commonplace surroundings, in the midst of what is called the dull monotony
of the daily round. That is, in the place where it is hardest to do it, He
lived every bit of what He taught. And as we follow, simply, obediently,
the Spirit will lead us along this same road. The same experience will
happen to us. Could there be a greater evidence of the power of this Holy
Spirit than to do such a thing with such as we know ourselves to be? Yet
He will, _if_ we let Him. A big "if" you say? But not too big to be taken
out of the way, out of His way. He will live out through us what He puts
into us, by and with our constant consent.
This is the meaning of the Nazareth life. Our part is obedience, simple,
intelligent, strong obedience to Him. The result will be this same
experience, a Nazareth life of purity and power lived by the Spirit's
power.
This was the thought in the mind of Horatius Bonar, as he wrote of the
unnamed woman who anointed our Lord's head, and of whom Jesus said that
what she had done should be told as a memorial of her, wherever the Gospel
should be preached.
"Up and away like dew in the morning,
Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,
So let me steal away, gently and lovingly,
Only remembered by what I have done.
My name and my place and my tomb all forgotten,
The brief race of time well and patiently run,
So let me pass away peacefully, silently,
Only remembered by what I have done.
Gladly away from this toil would I hasten,
Up to the crown that for me has been won,
Unthought of by man in reward and in praises,
Only remembered by what I have done.
Up and away like the odours of sunset
That sweeten the twilight as darkness comes on,
So be my life--a thing _felt_ but not noticed,
And I but remembered by what I have done.
Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness,
When the flowers that it comes from are closed up and gone,
So would I be to this world's weary dwellers,
Only remembered by what I have done.
I need not be missed if my life has been bearing,
As the summer and autumn move silently on,
The bloom and the fruit and the seed of its season;
I still am remembered by what I have done.
I need not be missed if another succeed me,
To reap down these fields that in spring
I have sown;
He who ploughed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper;
He is only remembered by what he has done.
Not myself but the truth that in life I have spoken,
Not myself but the seed in life I have sown,
Shall pass on to ages--all about _me_ forgotten,
Save the truth I have spoken, the things
I have done.
So let my living be, so be my dying,
So let my name be emblazoned, unknown,--
Unraised and unmissed I shall still be remembered,
Yes,--but remembered by what I have done."
The Galilean Ministry.
The fourth experience in this group was _the Galilean Ministry_. Our Lord
Jesus gave Himself up to helping those in need. He devoted Himself to
personal service among men. After John's imprisonment He withdrew to
Galilee and ministered to the needy.
There were crowds of them. They were in sorest need of body and spirit.
And He gave Himself freely out to them in glad helpful service. He met
their need. He did whatever their condition called for. He ministered to
their bodily needs. He mingled among them freely as an older brother or
friend, holding their children on His knees while He talked with them over
their concerns and troubles. But He didn't stop there. Having won their
hearts, He met their deeper needs. He comforted their hearts, talked to
them one by one, drawing out their hearts, and speaking of the Father.
And as the crowds thickened, He taught and preached to the multitudes. He
was a preacher, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. He was a teacher,
bit by bit, line upon line, patiently teaching and explaining to them
about the Father's love, and about the true life and how to live it. Three
words are used several times to characterize that Galilean ministry,
teaching and preaching and healing.[62]
He warned against sin, patiently wooing erring men and women away from
their sin into lives of purity, and strengthening the young and earnest in
their purposes. The need of the crowd swept Him like a strong wind in the
young trees. He couldn't resist their plea. The presence of a man in need,
of either body or spirit, took hold of His heart. Over and over we are
told that He was "moved with compassion." What a life it was! What a heart
He had!
Now our Lord Jesus calls us along this bit of the road. That is to say,
the Holy Spirit within us will make our hearts tender and compassionate,
even as our Lord Jesus was. The crowds always moved Him tremendously. He
couldn't stand the great dumb cry that the mere presence of a multitude
rang in His ears. The mere presence of some one in need, earnestly
seeking, played upon the strings of His heart.
Does the crowd get hold of your heart as you elbow your way through them,
or look down into their faces? Is it just a crowd to you? Or is it a great
company of hungry hearts, half-starved lives, so needy for what only this
Lord Jesus can give? The dumb cry of the crowds, in crowds and one by one,
comes up in our ears to-day. Do you hear it? I say "dumb," for they don't
know themselves what it is they need. They feel the need. Restless and
chafing, they feel without knowing just what it is they lack and need.
When the Spirit that swayed the Lord Jesus comes in, He mightily affects
your heart. You feel with something of our Lord's feeling. And you _must_
help. You know that the one thing, the only thing, that can really
radically meet their need is this Saviour Jesus. You must do something to
get them really to know Him. And that something comes to be everything.
Service isn't a pastime; it's a passion. That "must" sends you out on glad
unheralded errands to help in any way you can, and in every way by which
the Jesus message can get to them.
The "must" of His tender passion within keeps you steadily pushing ahead,
regardless of not being understood by some, nor your efforts appreciated
by others. The flame of that "must" takes hold of time and strength and
possessions. It becomes the delight of your life to minister to the needs
of men, even as He did. You see them through His eyes. You feel their need
through His heart. _And_--this is a great _and_--if you really follow as
simply and fully as He leads, you will find _the same power_ working out
through your effort as through His, though there will be immensely more of
it than you will know about.
But--there's a "but" that needs to be put in here--the key-note will not
be service, but _obedience_. The need will not be the controlling thing.
It will move you tremendously; it will kindle a sweet fever in your heart,
a fever to help; it will take hold of your heart strings and play upon
them until you almost lose control. But it must not be allowed to control.
That belongs to Him alone.
The key-note is not need, nor service to meet the need, but obedience.
There is a Lord to the harvest. His plans are worked carefully out. He
takes Philip away from the crowded meetings in Samaria to talk with one
man. It was doubtless a strategic move to touch lives in Africa, as well
as to meet this one man's need. He feels the need more than you ever do or
can. His ears are keener, His heart more tender. He is in command. You do
as He bids. So you help most in meeting the need.
He Himself when down here left the crowds, when they were so great that
the towns were overwhelmed and they had to be taken out to the country
places. He would leave these crowds and go off quietly to get alone with
His Father.[63] All that tireless ministry was under the direction of
Another. He went off for close touch, and fresh consultation with His
Father.
The Father's Image in the Common Crowd.
Have you ever wondered what there was in those common crowds to attract
our Lord Jesus? Perhaps if you have ever walked in those narrow crowded
alleys called streets, in China or Japan, you may have wondered,
sometimes. Tired, dirty, pinched faces, eyes vacantly staring, or else
fired with low passion, high-keyed voices bickering and jangling,--all
this crowds in and out on every hand. Dirt, disease, low passion,
selfishness, apparent absence of anything noble or refined, are all
tangled inextricably up with these in human form.
And our Lord Jesus lived in an Oriental world. Is there any world quite
like it, except indeed it be the slums of our western world cities,
European and American? City slums seem to be our western point of contact
with the greater part of the eastern world. What was there to attract the
Lord Jesus to these crowds? Their need, you answer. Yes, no doubt, their
terrible need did move Him with compassion, to the hurting point.
But was there more than this? Something He said one time has made me
think there was something more, a pathetic, tremendous more, that took
hold of His heart. Could it be that He saw some lingering trace of the
Father's face in these faces? His eyes were very keen. He had seeing eyes.
And these men have all been made in the Father's image. Has that image
ever been wholly lost?--terribly blurred and scarred by sin, yes; but
wholly lost? Do you think so? I think not.
Those wondrous eyes of His looking into men's tired, pinched faces,
disfigured with passion or sorrow, or with sheer weariness of
existence--did He see something of the Father's face looking appealingly
up to be helped out of their sad plight? I wonder. Was it as though the
Father's face cried out to Him out of these poor beaten faces? I think so.
Do you remember that time when our Lord Jesus associated Himself so
closely with just such men and women, in talking of a coming day? He says
"inasmuch as ye did it to one of these My brethren, these least, ye did it
unto Me."[64] Listen to those words, "My brethren"! He is thinking of just
such crowds as He Himself ministered to, and as you find to-day in
Oriental city and in European and American slum. What is done for them is
done to Him. Their need is His need; their cry, His. It's Jesus coming to
us in these crowds. Their need is Jesus Himself appealing to us. And the
Jesus within us will answer with heart and life to this Jesus coming to
us in the pitiable need of the crowds.
I do not mean to use that word "pitiable" chiefly in the bodily sense,
though there's so much of that. But it has a deeper meaning. Here is this
fair young face turned to yours in the social group, here this strong
young man needing nothing that money can buy, but yet very needy, both of
them. In their young, eager faces the hidden away image, the
not-yet-touched-into-new-life image of the Father looks out asking for
help, help out into growth amidst so much that holds back. Inasmuch as
your light, tactful touch is given here, it is done unto Jesus. Jesus is
helped into the life, the God-image crowded back within is helped to get
out into free expression.
You may not be sent to some distant field as young Borden was. Your
personal place may be at home. But the crowd, the need, is everywhere; at
home, in the social circle, and among the men driven by the passion for
business and for pleasure, in this dangerously prosperous land of ours.
Need of body even here, and deeper need of spirit. Much more tact is
required, Spirit-born tact and patience and alertness, to touch and help
these.
But the Spirit will guide. He has a passion for men in their need. He has
exquisite tact in touching men under all circumstances. He will take
command of your life here as elsewhere. He will lead you into a life of
personal service in helping men. And He will lead you _in_ that service.
This is the Galilean Ministry which will work out in your experience as
the Holy Spirit has control. This is a bit of the "Follow Me" roadway.
These are the four experiences of power and privilege. They are as the
great underlying experiences of our Lord's career. The other experiences
grew up out of these. These were the warp threads in the loom of His life.
The others were woven into these. This is the main road that He trod. It
is the main road of this "Follow Me" journey. It is along this road,
between its beginning and end, that we shall run down into the valley-road
stretches, and run up to the stretches along the hilltops.