Quiet Talks on John's Gospel Part 3

I think likely in the original ma.n.u.script, John's own first copy, the writing was a bit shaky and uneven here. The dew of his wet eyes drops and blurs the words a bit as he puts down, "He came to His own, and . .

they who were His own . . _received . . Him . . not_."

One day a young student was crossing the quadrangles of one of the old Scottish Universities towards his quarters in the dormitory. He was not feeling well. His eyes had troubled him and made his work very difficult. On the advice of a friend he sought the judgment of an expert in the treatment of the eyes. The specialist made a very thorough examination and then informed the young student tactfully but plainly that he would lose his eyesight, surely and not slowly.

Lose his eyesight? A sudden terrific actual blow between his eyes could not have stunned his body more than this stunned brain and heart. Lose his eyesight! All his plans and coveted ambitions seemed slipping clean out from his grasp. With the loss of eyes would go the loss of university training, and so of all his dreams. Dazed, blinded, he groped his way rather than walked out of the physician's office.

His life was to be joined with another's. And now he turned his distracted steps towards her home, hungry doubtless for some word or touch of comfort for his sore heart. And he was thinking, too, that with this utter break-up of the future she must be told. And as he talked he said in quiet manly words that under these unexpected circ.u.mstances, and the radical change in his prospects, she must be free to do as she thought best.

And she took her freedom! Yet she was a woman. And a woman's mission is to teach man love by the real thing of love, by being it herself, and drawing it out into full flower in him. That was the second staggering blow. A second time he groped his dazed way out of the house, down the street, into his lone student quarters.

But another One was near, brooding over him, and tenderly holding his breaking heart, and speaking words of warm comfort, and breathing in the fres.h.i.+ng breath of true love. And as he yielded to this it overcame all else. A new mood came and dominated. And it became the fixed thing mastering all his life. Now he sits down, and out of his torn bleeding but newly-touched heart writes the words we have all learned to sing:

"O Love that will _not_ let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee, I give Thee back the life I owe, That in thine ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.

"O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee; My heart restores its borrowed ray That in Thy suns.h.i.+ne's glow its day May brighter, fairer be.

"O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain That morn shall tearless be.

"O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to hide from Thee; I lay in dust life's glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be."

And with but a single change, the change of a word or two in one line, they stand as at first written. I suppose his biographer omitted the incident for the same reason that the first three Gospels may have omitted the incident of Lazarus while he was still living. So there was a sheltering from personal embarra.s.sment.

He came to his own and his own received him not. _He_--Jesus came to _His_ own and they that were His own received Him not. Aye, there's more to add: He _comes_ to His own--you and me--to-day. And His own--

You and I must finish that sentence, each in his own way. And we will; and we do. We may copy out in our lives just what these men of old did as told by John. Some of us do. We _may_ do some fine revision work on the text of John's version as we translate it now into the experience of our own hearts, and into the life of our own lives. That's the only way to understand the next sentence about being taken into the family of G.o.d and sharing the fullness of life that is common there.

And this bit that is put down here is only a bit of copy work. _These things_ are talked and written only that we may be given a lift into closer touch of heart and life with the Christ, the Son of G.o.d, and the Brother and Saviour of men.

II

The Wooing Lover

_Who it Was that Came_

"But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat--and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet-- _'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'_"

--"_The Hound of Heaven._"

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

--_Rev. iii. 20._

II

The Wooing Lover

(John i. 1-18.)

In His Own Image.

Love gives. It gives freely and without stint, yet always thoughtfully.

It gives itself out, its very life. This is its life, to give its life.

It lives most by giving most. So it comes into fullness of life.

So it _gets_. A thing of life, in its own image, comes walking eagerly with outstretched arms to its embrace. It gives that it may get. Yet the giving is the greater. It brings most joy.

This is the very essence of life, this giving creating spirit. It is everywhere, in lower life and higher and highest, wherever the touch of G.o.d has come. The sun gives itself out in life and light and warmth. And out to greet it comes a bit of itself--the fine form and sweet fragrance of the rose, the tender blade of gra.s.s, the unfolding green of the leaf, the wealth of the soil, the song of the bird and the grateful answer of all nature.

The hen sits long patient days on her nest. And forth comes cheeping life in her own image, answering the call of her mothering spirit. The mother-bird in the nest in the crotch of the tree gives her life day by day in brooding love. And her wee nestling offspring, in her own image, answers with glad increase of strength and growth.

Father and mother of our human kind give of their very life that new life may come. And under the overshadowing touch of an unseen Presence comes a new life made in their image, and in His who broods unseen over all three. And over the life wrecked by sin broods the Spirit of G.o.d.

And out through the doorway of an opening will, comes a new creature of winsome life in the very image of that brooding Spirit of G.o.d.

This is the holy commonplace of all life. It is the touch of G.o.d. It is everywhere about us, and beneath and above. The father-mother Spirit of G.o.d broods over all our common life. And when things go wrong, He broods a bit closer and tenderer. He meets every need of the life He has created. And He meets it in the same way, by giving Himself.

And there's always the response. The fragrance of the rose answers the sun. The pipped sh.e.l.l brings the longed-for answer to the gladdened mother-bird. The ever wondrous babe-eyes give unspeakable answer to the yearning of father and mother heart. The heart of man leaps at the call of his G.o.d.

This makes quite clear the wondrous response men gave Jesus when He walked among us. Jesus was G.o.d coming a bit closer in His brooding love to mend a break and restore a blurred image. And men answered Him. They couldn't help it. How they came! They didn't understand Him, but they felt Him. They couldn't resist the tender, tremendous pull upon their hearts of His mere presence.

And Jesus drew man into the closest touch of intimate friends.h.i.+p. The long-range way of doing things never suited Him. And it doesn't. He didn't keep man at arm's length. And He doesn't. And then because they were friends, He and they, they were eager to serve, and willing even to suffer, to walk a red-marked roadway for Him they loved.

The Gospel According to--You.

Among all those who felt and answered the call of Jesus was one called John, John the disciple. Jesus drew John close. John came close. John lived close. John came early and he stayed late. He stayed to the very end, into the evening glow of life. And all his long life he was under the tender holy spell of Jesus' presence. He was swayed by the Jesus-pa.s.sion. Always burning, he was yet never consumed; only the alloy burned up and burned out, himself refined to the quality of life called eternal.

Then John came to the end of his long life. And he knew he would be slipping the tether of life and going out and up and in to the real thing of life. And I think John was a bit troubled. Not because he was going to die. This never troubles the man who knows Jesus. The Jesus-touch overcomes the natural twinges of death. But he was troubled a bit in spirit for a little by the thought that he would not be on earth any longer to talk to people about Jesus. And to John this was the one thing worth while. This was the life-pa.s.sion.

And so I think John prayed about it a bit. For this is what he did. He said to himself, "I will write a book. I'll make it a little book, so busy people can quickly read it. I'll pick out the simplest words I know so common folks everywhere that don't have dictionaries can easily understand. And I'll make them into the shortest simplest sentences I can so they can quickly get my story of Jesus." And so John wrote his little book. And we call it the story of Jesus according to John, or, as we commonly say the Gospel--the G.o.d-story--according to John.

And all this is a simple bit of a parable. It is a parable in action.

Jesus is brooding over us, giving Himself, warmly wooing us. He woos us into personal friends.h.i.+p with Himself. And then He asks that each of us shall write a gospel. This is the Gospel according to John; and these others according to Luke and Mark and Matthew. He means that there shall be the gospel according to--_you_. What is your name? put it in there.

Then you get the Master's plan. There is to be the gospel according to Charles and Robert and George, and Mary and Elizabeth and Margaret.