Personal Friendships of Jesus Part 7

It is interesting to think of the sinless life of Jesus all these years. There was no halo about his head but the s.h.i.+ning of manly character. There were no miracles wrought by his hands but the miracles of duty, faithful service, and gentle kindness. Yet we cannot doubt that his life in Nazareth was one of rare grace and beauty, marked by perfect unselfishness and great helpfulness.

By and by he went away from Nazareth to begin his public ministry as the Messiah. From that time the people saw him no more. The carpenter shop was closed, and the tools lay unused on the bench. The familiar form appeared no more on the streets. A year or more pa.s.sed, and one day he came back to visit his old neighbors. He stayed a little while, and on the Sabbath was at the village church as had been his wont when his home was at Nazareth. When the opportunity was given him, he unrolled the Book of Isaiah, and read the pa.s.sage which tells of the anointing of the Messiah, and gives the wonderful outline of his ministry. When he had finished the reading, he told the people that this prophecy was now fulfilled in their ears. That is, he said that he was the Messiah whose anointing and work the prophet had foretold.

For a time the people listened spellbound to his gracious words, and then they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter of their village should make such an astounding claim. They rose up in wrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over the precipice had he not eluded them and gone on his way.

He had come to them in love, bearing rich blessings; but they drove him away with the blessings. He had come to heal their sick, to cure their blind and lame, to cleanse their lepers, to comfort their sorrowing ones; but he had to go away and leave these works of mercy unwrought, while the sufferers continued to bear their burdens. His friends.h.i.+p for his old neighbors was unrequited.

Another instance of unrequited friends.h.i.+p in the life of Jesus was in the case of the rich young man who came to him. He had many excellent traits of character, and was also an earnest seeker after the truth.

We are distinctly told that Jesus loved him. Thus he belongs with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, of whom the same was said. But here, again, the love was unrequited. The young man was deeply interested in Jesus, and wanted to go with him; but he could not pay the price, and turned and went away.

It is interesting to think what might have been the result if he had chosen Christ and gone with him. He might have occupied an important place in the early church, and his name might have lived through all future generations. But he loved his money too much to give it up for Christ, and rejected the way of the cross marked out for him. He refused the friends.h.i.+p of Jesus, and thus threw away all that was best in life. In shutting love out of his heart, he shut himself out from love.

Of all the examples of unrequited friends.h.i.+p in the story of Jesus, that of Judas is the saddest. We do not know the beginning of the story of his disciples.h.i.+p, when Judas first came to Jesus, or who brought him. But he must have been a follower some time before he was chosen to be an apostle. Jesus thought over the names of those who had left all to be with him. Then after a night of prayer he chose twelve of these to be his special messengers and witnesses. He loved them all, and took them into very close relations.

Think what a privilege it was for these men to live with Jesus. They heard all his words. They saw every phase of his life. Some friends it is better not to know too intimately. They are not as good in private as they are in public. Their life does not bear too close inspection. We discover in them dispositions, habits, ways, tempers, feelings, motives, which dim the l.u.s.tre we see in them at greater distance. Intimacy weakens the friends.h.i.+p. But, on the other hand, there are those who, the more we see of their private life, the more we love them. Close a.s.sociation reveals loveliness of character, fineness of spirit, richness of heart, sweetness of disposition--habits, feelings, tempers, n.o.ble self-denials, which add to the attractiveness of the life and the charm of our friend's personality. We may be sure that intimacy with Jesus only made him appear all the more winning and beautiful to his friends. Judas lived in the warmth of this wondrous love, under the influence of this gracious personality, month after month. He witnessed the pure and holy life of Jesus in all its manifold phases, heard his words, and saw his works. Doubtless, too, in his individual relation with the Master, he received many marks of affection and personal friends.h.i.+p.

A careful reading of the Gospels shows that Judas was frequently warned of the very sin which in the end wrought his ruin. Continually Jesus spoke of the danger of covetousness. In the Sermon on the Mount he exhorted his disciples to lay up their treasure, not upon earth, but in heaven, and said that no one could serve G.o.d and mammon. It was just this that Judas was trying to do. In more than one parable the danger of riches was emphasized. Can we doubt that in all these reiterations and warnings on the one subject, Judas was in the Master's mind? He was trying in the faithfulness of loyal friends.h.i.+p to save him from the sin which was imperilling his very life.

But Judas resisted all the mighty love of Christ. It made no impression upon him; he was unaffected by it. In his heart there grew on meanwhile, unchecked, unhindered, his terrible greed for money.

First it made him a thief. The money given to Jesus by his friends to provide for his wants, or to use for the poor, Judas, who was the treasurer, began at length to purloin for himself. This was the first step. The next was the selling of his Master for thirty pieces of silver. This was a more fearful fruit of his nourished greed than the purloining was. It is bad enough to steal. It is a base form of stealing which robs a church treasury as Judas did. But to take money as the price of betraying a friend--could any sin be baser? Could any crime be blacker than that? To take money as the price of betraying a friend in whose confidence one has lived for years, at whose table one has eaten day after day, in the blessing of whose friends.h.i.+p one has rested for months and years--are there words black enough to paint the infamy of such a deed?

All the partic.i.p.ators in the crime of that Good Friday wear a peculiar brand of infamy as they are portrayed on the pages of history; but among them all, the most despicable, the one whose name bears the deepest infamy, is Judas, an apostle turned traitor, for a few miserable coins betraying his best friend into the hands of malignant foes.

This is the outcome of the friends.h.i.+p of Jesus for Judas; this was the fruit of those years of affection, cheris.h.i.+ng, patient teaching. Think what Judas might have been. He was chosen and called to be an apostle.

There was no reason in the heart of Jesus why Judas might not have been true and worthy. Sin is not G.o.d's plan for any life. Treachery and infamy were not in G.o.d's purpose for Judas. Jesus would not have chosen him for one of the Twelve if it had not been possible for him to be a good and true man. Judas fell because he had never altogether surrendered himself to Christ. He tried to serve G.o.d and mammon; but both could not stay in his heart, and instead of driving out mammon, mammon drove out Christ.

This suggests to us what a battlefield the human heart sometimes is--a Waterloo where destinies are settled. G.o.d or mammon--which? That is the question every soul must answer. How goes the battle in your soul?

Who is winning on your field--Christ or money? Christ or pleasure?

Christ or sin? Christ or self? Judas lost the battle; the Devil won.

A picture in Brussels represents Judas wandering about the night after the betrayal. By chance he comes upon the workmen who have been preparing the cross for Jesus. A fire burning close by throws its weird light on the faces of the men who are now sleeping. The face of Judas is somewhat in the shade; but one sees on it remorse and agony, as the traitor's eyes fall upon the cross and the tools which have been used in making it,--the cross to which his treason had doomed his friend. But though suffering in the torments of a guilty conscience, he still tightly clutches his money-bag as he hurries on into the night. The picture tells the story of the fruit of Judas's sin,--the money-bag, with eighteen dollars and sixty cents in it, and even that soon to be cast away in the madness of despair.

Unrequited friends.h.i.+p! Yes; and in shutting out that blessed friends.h.i.+p, Judas shut out hope. Longfellow puts into his mouth the despairing words:--

"Lost, lost, forever lost! I have betrayed The innocent blood ...

Too late! too late! I shall not see him more Among the living. That sweet, patient face Will nevermore rebuke me, nor those lips Repeat the words, 'One of you shall betray me.'"

The great lesson from all this is the peril of rejecting the friends.h.i.+p of Jesus Christ. In his friends.h.i.+p is the only way to salvation, the only way of obtaining eternal life. He calls men to come to him, to follow him, to be his friends; and thus alone can they come unto G.o.d, and be received into his family.

There is something appalling in the revealing which this truth teaches,--the power each soul possesses of shutting out all the love of G.o.d, of resisting the infinite blessing of the friends.h.i.+p of Christ.

It is possible for us to be near to Christ through all our life, with his grace flowing about us like an ocean, and yet to have a heart that remains unblessed by divine love. We may make G.o.d's love in vain, wasted, as suns.h.i.+ne is wasted that falls upon desert sands, so far as we are concerned. The love that we do not requite with love, that does not get into our heart to warm, soften, and enrich it, and to mellow and bless our life, is love poured out in vain. It is made in vain by our unbelief. We may make even the dying of Jesus for us in vain,--a waste of precious life, so far as we are concerned. It is in vain for us that Jesus died if we do not let his love into our heart.

Ofttimes the unrequiting of human love makes the heart bitter. When holy friends.h.i.+p has been despised, rejected, and cast away, when one has loved, suffered, and sacrificed in vain, receiving only ingrat.i.tude and wrong in return for love's most sacred gifts freely lavished, the danger is that the heart may lose its sweetness, and grow cold, hard, and misanthropic. But not thus was the heart of Jesus affected by the unrequiting of his love and friends.h.i.+p. One Judas in the life of most men would have ended the whole career of generous kindness, drying up the fountains of affection, thus robbing those who would come after of the wealth of tenderness which ought to have been theirs. But through all the unrequiting and resisting of its love, the heart of Jesus still remained gentle as a mother's, rich in its power to love, and sweet in its spirit.

This is one of the great problems of true living,--how to keep the heart warm, gentle, compa.s.sionate, kind, full of affection's best and truest helpfulness, even amid life's hardest experiences. We cannot live and not at some time suffer wrong. We will meet injustice, however justly we ourselves may live. We will find a return of ingrat.i.tude many a time when we have done our best for others. Favors rendered are too easily forgotten by many people. There are few of us who do not remember helping others in time of great need and distress, only to lose their friends.h.i.+p in the end, perhaps, as a consequence of our serving them in their need. Sometimes the only return for costly kindness is cruel unkindness.

It is easy to allow such unrequiting, such ill treatment of love, to embitter the fountain of the heart's affection; but this would be to miss the true end of living, which is to get good and not evil to ourselves from every experience through which we pa.s.s. No ingrat.i.tude, injustice, or unworthiness in those to whom we try to do good, should ever be allowed to turn love's sweetness into bitterness in us. Like fresh-water springs beside the sea, over which the brackish tide flows, but which when the bitter waters have receded are found sweet as ever, so should our hearts remain amid all experiences of love's unrequiting, ever sweet, thoughtful, unselfish, and generous.

CHAPTER X.

JESUS AND THE BETHANY SISTERS.

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, Nor other thought her mind admits But, he was dead, and there he sits, And he that brought him back is there.

Then one deep love doth supersede All other, when her ardent gaze Roves from the living brother's face, And rests upon the Life indeed.

TENNYSON.

The story of Jesus and the Bethany home is intensely interesting.

Every thoughtful Christian has a feeling of grat.i.tude in his heart when he remembers how much that home added to the comfort of the Master by means of the hospitality, the shelter, and the love it gave to him.

One of the legends of Brittany tells us that on the day of Christ's crucifixion, as he was on his way to his cross, a bird, pitying the weary sufferer bearing his heavy burden, flew down, and plucked away one of the thorns that pierced his brow. As it did so, the blood spurted out after the thorn, and splashed the breast of the bird. Ever since that day the bird has had a splash of red on its bosom, whence it is called robin-redbreast. Certainly the love of the Bethany home drew from the breast of Jesus many a thorn, and blessed his heart with many a joy.

We have three glimpses within the doors of this home when the loved guest was there. The first shows us the Master and his disciples one day entering the village. It was Martha who received him. Martha was the mistress of the house. "She had a sister called Mary," a younger sister.

Then we have a picture as if some one had photographed the scene. We see Mary drawing up a low stool, and sitting down at the Master's feet to listen to his words. We see Martha hurrying about the house, busy preparing a meal for the visitors who had come in suddenly. This was a proper thing to do; it was needful that hospitality be shown. There is a word in the record, however, which tells us that Martha was not altogether serene as she went about her work. "Martha was c.u.mbered about much serving." A marginal reading gives, "was distracted."

Perhaps there are many modern Christian housekeepers who would be somewhat c.u.mbered, or distracted too, if thirteen hungry men dropped in suddenly some day, and they had to entertain them, preparing them a meal. Still, the lesson unmistakably is that Martha should not have been fretted; that she should have kept sweet amid all the pressure of work that so burdened her.

It was not quite right for her to show her impatience with Mary as she did. Coming into the room, flushed and excited, and seeing Mary sitting quietly and unconcernedly at the Rabbi's feet, drinking in his words, she appealed to Jesus, "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister did leave me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me."

I am not sure that Martha was wrong or unreasonable in thinking that Mary should have helped her. Jesus did not say she was wrong; he only reminded Martha that she ought not to let things fret and vex her.

"Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things." It was not her serving that he reproved, but the fret that she allowed to creep into her heart.

The lesson is, that however heavy our burdens may be, however hurried or pressed we may be, we should always keep the peace of Christ in our heart. This is one of the problems of Christian living,--not to live without cares, which is impossible, but to keep quiet and sweet in the midst of the most c.u.mbering care.

At the second mention of the Bethany home there is sore distress in it.

A beloved one is very sick, sick unto death. Few homes are entire strangers to the experience of those days when the sufferer lay in the burning fever. Love ministered and prayed and waited. Jesus was far away, but word was sent to him. He came at length, but seemed to have come too late. "If thou hadst been here!" the sisters said, each separately, when they met the Master. But we see now the finished providence, not the mere fragment of it which the sisters saw; and we know he came at the right time. He comforted the mourners, and then he blotted out the sorrow, bringing back joy to the home.[1]

The third picture of this home shows us a festal scene. A dinner was given in honor of Jesus. It was only a few days before his death.

Here, again, the sisters appear, each true to her own character.

Martha is serving, as she always is; and again Mary is at Jesus' feet.

This time she is showing her wonderful love for the friend who has done so much for her. The ointment she pours upon him is an emblem of her heart's pure affection.

Mary's act was very beautiful. Love was the motive. Without love no service, however great or costly, is of any value in heaven's sight.

The world may applaud, but angels turn away with indifference when love is lacking. "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor ... but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." But love makes the smallest deed radiant as angel ministry. We need not try doing things for Christ until we love him. It would be like putting rootless rods in a garden-bed, expecting them to grow into blossoming plants. Love must be the root. It was easy for Mary to bring her alabaster box, for her heart was full of overmastering love.

Service is the fruit of love. It is not all of its fruit. Character is part too. If we love Christ, we will have Christ's beauty in our soul. Mary grew wondrously gentle and lovely as Christ's words entered her heart. Friends.h.i.+p with Christ makes us like Christ. But there will be service too. Love is like light, it cannot be hid. It cannot be shut up in the heart. It will not be imprisoned and restrained. It will live and speak and act. Love in the heart of Jesus brought him from heaven down to earth to be the lost world's Redeemer. Love in his apostles took them to the ends of the earth to tell the gospel story to the peris.h.i.+ng.

It is not enough to try to hew and fas.h.i.+on a character into the beauty of holiness, until every feature of the image of Christ s.h.i.+nes in the life, as the sculptor shapes the marble into the form of his vision.

The most radiant spiritual beauty does not make one a complete Christian. It takes service to fill up the measure of the stature of Christ. The young man said he had kept all the commandments from his youth. "One thing thou lackest," said the Master; "sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor." Service of love was needed to make that morally exemplary life complete.

The lesson is needed by many Christian people. They are good, with blameless life, flawless character, consistent conduct; but they lack one thing,--service. Love for Christ should always serve. There is a story of a friar who was eager to win the favor of G.o.d, and set to work to illuminate the pages of the Apocalypse, after the custom of his time. He became so absorbed in his delightful occupation that he neglected the poor and the sick who were suffering and dying in the plague. He came at last, in the course of his work, to the painting of the face of his Lord in the glory of his second coming; but his hand had lost its skill. He wondered why it was, and realized that it was because, in his eagerness to paint his pictures, he had neglected his duty of serving.

Rebuffed and humiliated by the discovery, the friar drew his cowl over his head, laid aside his brushes, and went down among the sick and dying to minister to their needs. He wrought on, untiringly, until he himself was smitten with the fatal plague. Then he tottered back to his cell and to his easel, to finish his loved work before he died. He knelt in prayer to ask help, when, lo! he saw that an angel's hand had completed the picture of the glorified Lord, and in a manner far surpa.s.sing human skill.