The Mind of Jesus Part 3

It is an affecting thing to see a Great man in tears! "_Jesus wept!_" It was ever His delight to tread in the footsteps of sorrow--to heal the broken-hearted--turning aside from His own path of suffering to "weep with those that weep."

_Bethany!_ That scene, that _word_, is a condensed volume of consolation for yearning and desolate hearts. What a majesty in those tears! He had just been discoursing on Himself as the Resurrection and the Life--the next moment He is a Weeping Man by a human grave, melted in anguished sorrow at a bereaved one's side! Think of the funeral at the gate of Nain, reading its lesson to dejected myriads--"Let thy widows trust in me!" Think of the farewell discourse to His disciples, when, m.u.f.fling all His own foreseen and antic.i.p.ated sorrows, He thought only of soothing and mitigating theirs! Think of the affecting pause in that silent procession to Calvary, when He turns round and stills the sobs of those who are tracking His steps with their weeping! Think of that wondrous epitome of human tenderness, just ere His eyes closed in their sleep of agony--in the mightiest crisis of all time--when filial love looked down on an anguished mother, and provided her a son and a home!

Ah, was there ever sympathy like this! Son! Brother! Kinsman! Saviour!

all in one! The majesty of G.o.dhead almost lost in the tenderness of a Friend. But so it _was_, and so it is. The heart of the now enthroned King beats responsive to the humblest of His sorrow-stricken people. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord _carries me on His heart_!" (margin.)

Let us "go and do likewise." Let us be ready, like our Lord, to follow the beck of misery,--"to deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper." Sympathy costs but little. Its recompense and return are great, in the priceless consolation it imparts. Few there are who undervalue it. Look at Paul--the weary, jaded prisoner,--chained to a soldier--recently wrecked, about to stand before Caesar. He reaches Appii Forum and the Three Taverns, dejected and depressed. Brethren come from Rome, a distance of sixty miles, to offer their _sympathy_. The aged man is cheered! His spirit, like Jacob's, "revived!" "He thanked G.o.d, and took courage!"

Reader! let "this mind," this holy, Christ-like _habit_ be in you, which was also in your adorable Master. Delight, when opportunity occurs, to frequent the house of mourning--to bind up the widow's heart, and to dry the orphan's tears. If you can do nothing else, you can whisper into the ear of disconsolate sorrow those majestic solaces, which, rising first in the graveyard of Bethany, have sent their undying echoes through the world, and stirred the depths of ten thousand hearts. "Exercise your souls," says Butler, "in a loving sympathy with sorrow in every form.

Soothe it, minister to it, succor it, revere it. It is the relic of Christ in the world, an image of the Great Sufferer, a shadow of the cross. It is a holy and venerable thing."

Jesus Himself "_looked_ for some to take _pity_, but there was _none_; and for comforters, but He found _none_!" It shows how even _He_ valued sympathy, and that, too, in its commonest form of "_pity_," though an ungrateful World denied it.

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twelfth Day.

FIDELITY IN REBUKE.

"The Lord turned and looked upon Peter."--Luke, xxii. 61.

Jesus never spake one unnecessarily harsh or severe word. He had a Divine sympathy for the frailties and infirmities of a tried, and suffering, and tempted nature in others. He was forbearing to the ignorant, encouraging to the weak, tender to the penitent, loving to all,--yet how faithful was He as "the Reprover of sin!" Silent under His own wrongs, with what burning invectives did He lay bare the Pharisees'

masked corruption and hypocrisy! When His Father's name and temple were profaned, how did He sweep, with an avenging hand, the mammon-crowd away, replacing the superscription, "Holiness to the Lord," over the defiled altars!

Nor was it different with His own disciples. With what fidelity, when rebuke was needed, did He administer it: the withering reprimand conveyed sometimes by an impressive _word_ (Matt. xvi. 23); sometimes by a silent _look_ (Luke, xxii. 61). "Faithful always were the wounds of _this_ Friend."

Reader! art thou equally faithful with thy Lord in rebuking evil; not with "the wrath of man, which worketh not the righteousness of G.o.d," but with a holy jealousy of His glory, feeling, with the sensitive honor of "the good soldier of Jesus Christ," that an affront offered to Him is offered to thyself? The giving of a wise reproof requires much Christian prudence and delicate discretion. It is not by a rash and inconsiderate exposure of failings that we must attempt to reclaim an erring brother.

But neither, for the sake of a false peace, must we compromise fidelity; even friends.h.i.+p is too dearly purchased by winking at sin. Perhaps, when Peter was led to call the Apostle who honestly reproved him, "Our beloved brother Paul," in nothing did he love his rebuker more, than for the honest boldness of his Christian reproof. If Paul had, in that crisis of the Church, with a timidity unworthy of him, evaded the ungracious task, what, humanly speaking, might have been the result?

How often does a seasonable reprimand, a faithful caution, save a lifetime of sin and sorrow! How many a death-bed has made the disclosure, "That kind warning of my friend put an arrest on my career of guilt; it altered my whole being; it brought me to the cross, touched my heart, and, by G.o.d's grace, saved my soul!" On the other hand, how many have felt, when death has put his impressive seal on some close earthly intimacy, "This friend, or that friend,--I might have spoken a solemn word to him; but now he is no more; the opportunity is lost, never to be recalled!"

Reader! see that you act not the spiritual coward. When tempted to sit silent when the name of G.o.d is slighted or dishonored, think, _would Jesus have done so_?--would _He_ have allowed the oath to go unrebuked--the lie to be uttered unchallenged--the Sabbath with impunity to be profaned? Where there is a natural diffidence which makes you shrink from a more bold and open reproof, remember much may be done to discountenance sin, by the silent holiness of demeanor which refuses to smile at the unholy allusion or ribald jest. "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" "Speak gently," yet speak faithfully: "be pitiful--be courteous:" yet "quit you like men; be strong!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Thirteenth Day.

GENTLENESS IN REBUKE.

"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"--John, xxi. 15.

No word here of the erring disciple's past faithlessness;--his guilty cowardice--_unmentioned_;--his base denial--his oaths--and curses, and treacherous desertion--all _unmentioned_! The memory of a threefold denial is _suggested_, and no more, by the threefold question of unutterable tenderness, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" When Jesus finds His disciples sleeping at the gate of Gethsemane, He rebukes them; but how is the rebuke disarmed of its poignancy by the merciful apology which is added--"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!" How different from _their_ unkind insinuation regarding _Him_, when, in the vessel on Tiberias, "He was asleep"--"Master carest thou not that we peris.h.!.+" The woman of Samaria is full of earthliness, carnality, sectarianism, guilt. Yet how gently the Saviour speaks to her--how forbearingly, yet faithfully. He directs the arrow of conviction to that seared and hardened conscience, till He lays it bleeding at His feet! Truly, "He will not break the bruised reed--He will not quench the smoking flax." By "the _goodness_ of G.o.d," He would lead to repentance. When others are speaking of merciless violence, He can dismiss the most guilty of profligates with the words, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."

How many have an unholy pleasure in finding a brother in the wrong--blazing abroad his failings; administering rebuke, not in gentle forbearance and kindly expostulation, but with harsh and impatient severity! How beautifully did Jesus unite intense sensibility to sin, along with tenderest compa.s.sion for the sinner, showing in this that "He knoweth our frame!" Many a scholar needs gentleness in chastis.e.m.e.nt. The reverse would crush a sensitive spirit, or drive it to despair. Jesus tenderly "considers" the case of those He disciplines, "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb." In the picture of the good shepherd bearing home the wandering sheep, He ill.u.s.trated by parable what He had often and again taught by His own example. No word of needless harshness or upbraiding uttered to the erring wanderer!

Ingrat.i.tude is too deeply felt to need rebuke! In silent love, "He lays it on His shoulders rejoicing."

Reader! seek to mingle gentleness in all your rebukes; bear with the infirmities of others; make allowance for const.i.tutional frailties; never say harsh things, if kind things will do as well; do not unnecessarily lacerate with recalling former delinquencies. In reproving another, let us rather feel how much we need reproof ourselves.

"Consider thyself," is a searching Scripture motto for dealing with an erring brother. Remember thy Lord's method of silencing fierce accusation--"Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."

Moreover, anger and severity are not the successful means of reclaiming the backslider, or of melting the obdurate. Like the _smooth_ stones with which David smote Goliath, _gentle_ rebukes are generally the most powerful. The old fable of the traveller and his cloak has a moral here as in other things. The genial suns.h.i.+ne will effect its removal sooner than the rough tempest. It was said of Leighton, that "he rebuked faults so mildly, that they were never repeated, not because the admonished were afraid, but ashamed to do so."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Fourteenth Day.

ENDURANCE IN CONTRADICTION.

"Who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."-- Heb. xii. 3.

What endurance was this! Perfect truth in the midst of error; perfect love in the midst of ingrat.i.tude and coldness; perfect rect.i.tude in the midst of perjury, violence, fraud; perfect constancy in the midst of contumely and desertion; perfect innocence, confronting every debased form of depravity and guilt; perfect patience, encountering every species of gross provocation--"oppressed and afflicted, He opened not His mouth!" "For my love" (in return for my love), "they are mine adversaries; _but_" (see His endurance!--the only species of revenge of which His sinless nature was capable) "_I give myself unto prayer!_"

(Ps. cix. 4.)

Reader! "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus!" The greatest test of an earthly soldier's courage is _patient endurance_!

The n.o.blest trait of the spiritual soldier is the same. "Having done all _to stand_," "He _endured_, as seeing Him who is invisible!" Beware of the angry recrimination, the hasty ebullition of temper. Amid unkind insinuations--when motives are misrepresented, and reputation a.s.sailed; when good deeds are ridiculed, kind intentions coldly thwarted and repulsed, chilling reserve manifested where you expected nothing but friends.h.i.+p--what a triumph over natural impulse to manifest a spirit of meek endurance!--like a rainbow, radiant with the hues of heaven, resting peacefully amid the storms of derision and "the floods of unG.o.dly men." What an opportunity of magnifying the "sustaining grace of G.o.d!" "It is a small thing for me to be judged of you, or of man's judgment; He that judgeth me is the Lord." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what man can do unto me." "Blessed is the man that _endureth_." "He that _endureth_ to the end, the same shall be saved."

If faithful to our G.o.d, we must expect to encounter contradiction in the same form which Jesus did--"the contradiction of _sinners_." It has been well said, "There is no cross of nails and wood erected now for the Christian, but there is one of words and looks which is never taken down." If believers are set as lights in the earth, lamps in the "city of destruction," we know that "he that doeth evil _hateth_ the light."

"Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you!"

Weary and faint ones, exposed to the shafts of calumny and scorn because of your fidelity to your G.o.d; encountering, it may be, the coldness and estrangement of those dear to you, who can not, perhaps, sympathize in the holiness of your walk and the loftiness of your aims, "consider _Him_ that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, _lest_ ye be weary and faint in your minds!" What is _your_ "contradiction" to _His_? Soon your cross, whatever it be, will have an end. "The seat of the scorner" has no place in yonder glorious heaven, where all will be peace--no jarring note to disturb its blissful harmonies! Look forward to the great coronation-day of the Church triumphant,--the day of your divine Lord's appearing, when motives and aims, now misunderstood, will be vindicated, wrongs redressed, calumnies and aspersions wiped away.

Meanwhile, "rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer shame for His name."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Fifteenth Day.

PLEASING G.o.d.

"I do always those things that please Him."--John, viii. 29.

What a glorious motto for a man--"_I live for G.o.d!_" It is religion's truest definition. It is the essence of angelic bliss--the motive-principle of angelic action; "Ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure." The Lord of angels knew no higher, no _other_ motive. It was, during His incarnation, the regulator and directory of His daily being.

It supported Him amid the depressing sorrows of His woe-worn path. It upheld him in their awful termination in the garden and on the cross.

For a moment, sinking human nature faltered under the load His G.o.dhead sustained; but the thought of "pleasing G.o.d" nerved and revived Him.