Christ and men

Front matter

I

I*

BT 201 * B87 1905 Burrell, David James, 1926.

Preface

This book is the outcome of a series of sermons in¬ tended to set forth the teachings of Jesus in His conversations with individuals and groups of men.

The human side of His character is revealed most clearly in such interviews. There was never finer tact than His, nor ever such nice discernment of things and delicate handling of people.

We shall see herein that, as Heine says, “ Jesus was no dreamer among the shadows, but a man among men.”

Contents

The Evidential Value of Miracles . 76

I

In which the Imperial Son of God is brought into contact with the most imperial of men; and thrones tremble at the beginning of the March toward the Golden Age.

II

In which a Boy of twelve, in the presence of the most impor¬ tant body of scholars of his time, shows himself to be familiar with the problem of problems and his personal relation to it.

And they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them, and asking them questions: and all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

And when they saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing.

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?

And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. — Luke ii, 46-50.

The early life of Jesus is wrapped in mystery. It has been called “ the great silence.” His four biog¬ raphers are singularly agreed in omitting the entire period between his birth and ministry, with the ex¬ ception of a single episode. It is fair to presume, however, that there was nothing extraordinary in his youthful development. The record is, “ He increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” At three years of age, in accordance with cus¬ tom, he assumed the tasseled robe. At five he entered the rabbinical school, where the Scriptures were his text-book. At ten he began the study of theology, as elucidated in the Mishna, or traditional law. At twelve, the climacteric of life, he became a ben-hattorah or “ son of the law ” ; and was permitted to at¬ tend the Passover at Jerusalem.

That was a memorable event in the life of this Jewish boy. The pilgrims setting out from Nazareth would, doubtless, take occasion to join one of the many caravans wending their way, at that time, to the Holy City. As they journeyed they sang the Psalms of Ascent ; such as, “ I was glad when they said to me, Let us go unto the house of the Lord ! Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces ! ” The heart of the young pilgrim must have been deeply moved by historic scenes along the way. The land was in its vernal beauty; the fig-yards and olive-groves just coming into bloom. Yonder was the battle field of Esdraelon; and, to the East, Gilboa, where “ the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and his sons.” A little further on were the heights of Bethel, where Jacob dreamed his wonderful dream. And now they were passing through the Vale of Sychar, “ where Jacob’s well was.”

At length they reached the summit of Olivet; and Jerusalem was before them. The gilded roofs and colonnades of the temple were gleaming in the sun. The pilgrims sang, “ The Lord hath chosen Zion ! He hath said, This is my rest forever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it. I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her sons shall shout aloud for joy!” Then, crossing the Kidron, they ascended the opposite slope at evening, where probably Joseph pitched his tent outside the walls. The Paschal lamb was slain on the fourteenth of Nisan, and its blood was sprinkled on the posts and lintels of the tent. There were thou¬ sands of fires on the hillsides round about, where mul¬ titudes of pilgrims were celebrating the feast. The six succeeding days were devoted to imposing cere¬ monies in the temple; and then the crowds began to disperse.

It is not strange, when we remember the confusion incident to the departure of the numerous caravans, that the absence of the boy Jesus was not discovered at once: but when Joseph and Mary found he was not in their company, they immediately returned to the city and discovered him “ in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing, questioning and answer¬ ing.’’ In reply to his mother’s gentle reproof he said, “ How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”1 And it is written, “ They understood not.” But the significance of his words is indicated in the statement that his mother “ kept these sayings in her heart.”

This is our solitary glimpse into the early life of Jesus; and it is full of suggestion. Let us get the picture before us. It was probably in the Hall Gazith ; and in all the world there was no more distin¬ guished body of scholars than those accustomed to assemble there. Of the number were Annas, the high priest and president of the Sanhedrin ; Ben Uzziel, the Targumist who wrote the Chaldee Paraphrase; Joseph of Arimathea, a man of wealth and character; Ben

1 The Revised Version, following the Syriac, renders, “ in my Father’s house.” This is too narrow an interpretation of the original, which is, literally, “in the things or affairs of my Father.”

Buta, who had been blinded by Herod for bis devotion to the Jewish cause; Nicodemus; the aged Hillel, and Shammai, his rival ; and Gamaliel, a professor in the University of Jerusalem, known as “ the Flower of the Law.” In the midst of this notable assemblage stood the boy of twelve, “ hearing, asking questions and answering them.”

No intimation is given as to the themes traversed in this remarkable conference; but we cannot go far wrong in supposing that it had to do particularly with the three supreme problems of life.

First: God. The men of that circle were theologians. It was their special function as religious leaders of Israel to make themselves familiar with what was then and is still called “ the Science of God.” At that time there were three parties in the Sanhedrin, to wit, the Pharisees, or orthodox party; the Sadducees, who formed the “ liberal ” or destructive school ; and the Herodians, who insisted on adjusting the national faith and customs to the demands of Rome. But how¬ ever these parties might differ in detail and particular, they were all agreed as to the fundamental doctrine of Deity. They were monotheists, stringent in their op¬ position to idolatry as opposed to the worship of the true God.

We may imagine the boy Jesus, listening to their discourse on the abstract, self-existent, immaterial One, and asking, “ But how may we know that God is?” To which they would reply by presenting the stock arguments, “ ontological,” “ teleological,” “ cos¬ mological,” et cetera, in proof of the divine existence ; for these lines of evidence were practically as familiar then as now. And when he asked, “ Has God ever revealed himself to men ? ” they would open the Scrip¬ tures and turn to the theophanies and the story of the burning bush from which he spake, saying, “ I AM THAT I AM.” But the boy would ask again, “ Has he ever bowed the heavens to come down, so that men could behold him ? ” And they could only say, “ No, never. He is the transcendent, the absolute, the in¬ visible One.”

And the boy of twelve in their midst was the incar¬ nate God! A miracle? Yes; more wonderful than all others, yet the one miracle necessary to the welfare of man. Inexplicable? Yes; “great is the mystery of godliness, God is manifest in flesh ; ” yet no more inexplicable, in its last reduction, than any other di¬ vine work, as, for example, the union of Matter and Spirit in the human constitution. We gain nothing by too close scrutiny on the one hand, or by minimizing the mystery on the other. The fact itself is so closely interwoven with the fabric of the Scriptures that they become as meaningless as the unintelligible Oracles of Delphos unless we are prepared to say that Christ is “ very God of very God.” And just there he meets the necessity of the race. It is not enough to say, as the Ritschlians do, that the incarnation is merely a “ value judgment ” and that Jesus is God because to our inner consciousness he answers the purposes of God. You may paint a picture of the sun on a great canvas and cover it with radiations of gold ; but no night is illum¬ inated by it, no flower blooms under it, no shivering people warm themselves before it. Christ is not a pictured sun, but the veritable Sun of Righteousness with healing in his beams. He is “ the brightness of the glory of God.” The whole world feels his warmth ;

in his light we see light ; if he lay his quickening hand upon us we straightway cry, “ My Lord and my God ! ” Second: Man . Here is the complementary problem. It was the business of the distinguished Rabbis in Gazith to solve it. They were anthropologists ; they were familiar with metaphysics and ethics. The two schools of Hillel and Shammai, opposed in many par¬ ticulars, were agreed in these : that man was originally created in the divine likeness, that he had fallen from his high estate through sin and that his chief concern is to regain his forfeited birthright.

The boy in their midst may have been moved to ask, “ Has this recovery ever been realized? Is there an instance of one who has so far delivered himself from the bondage of sin as to enter fully into the in¬ heritance of God?” And what could they say? If they mentioned Abraham, he would answer, “ But did not the faith of Abraham, on occasion, fail him ?” If Noah, “ Did he not lie drunken in the entrance of his tent? ” If Moses, “ Was he not betrayed by anger and so forbidden to enter the Land of Promise?” If David, “ What means this cry from his closet on the housetop ; ‘ Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness and according unto the multi¬ tude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions ! For I have sinned and done evil in thy sight ’ ? ” They must have admitted that never once had there been an illustration of the Ascent of Man. The Lord looked down from heaven to see if there was any that wrought righteousness ; and he sadly said, “ There is none that doeth good, no not one 1 ”

But the dream was realized in this boy of twelve. His birth was the descent of God; his life was the ascent of man. Alone and solitary in a world of sin¬ ners, he was the Perfect One. There was no guile in his lips, no guile in his heart. The challenge of his later life was, “ Who layeth anything to my charge? ” And neither then nor during the succeeding centuries has there been any to accuse him.

The character of Jesus was as really the result of development as is the character of any common man. True, there was no inherent sin in him; but his cir¬ cumstances were such as to make his conflict a very real one. It was one of the purposes of his human life to show how a man can get the better of his envi¬ ronment and keep himself unspotted from the world. But for this he might have come down from heaven a mature and perfect man. The monk Tauler, a Do¬ minican mystic who wrote five hundred years ago, represents his advent in this wise:

There comes a galley laden,

A heavenly freight on board;

It bears God’s Son, the Saviour,

The great Undying Word.

And proudly floats that galley,

From troubled coast to coast:

Its sail is love and mercy;

Its mast, the Holy Ghost.

Now earth hath caught the anchor.

The ship hath touched the strand;

God’s Word, in fleshly garment, —

The Son, — steps out on land!

But had he appeared in such manner, he would have separated himself from all mankind by an omission of the formative processes of life. In order that he might know and sympathize with our upward struggle, he must pass through it ; wherefore it is written, “ He grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with Go,d and man.” At every stage of this development, how¬ ever, he was the Sinless One. His was the develop¬ ment of a perfect nature limited by the conditions of a sinful world. It was like the development of a foun¬ tain, which is as perfect when it issues from the rock as when it rolls in a torrent to the sea. Or, like that of the oak, which is as perfect when it shoots from the acorn as when it lifts its mighty arms to grapple with the storm. Jesus was not hurt by his environment; sin never touched him. As child, youth, man, he was always sinless ; and thus he stands as a perpetual illus¬ tration of the Ascent of Man.

Third: Reconciliation; the reconciliation of a holy God with sinful men. At this point Messiah enters, “ the hope of Israel ” ; one hand clasping the hand of God and the other the hand of man. The earliest of Jewish writers called him “the Daysman”; that is, the Reconciler. The prophecy of his coming runs un¬ interruptedly through Holy Writ. It would be scarcely possible for a company of such learned Rabbis as sat in the Hall Gazith to refrain from discussing it.

The boy in their midst would ask, “ Who is this Messiah ? When he cometh, how will ye know him ? ” And they would answer, “ He is to be King of Kings, ‘ great David’s greater Son.’ In the fulness of time he will appear to deliver Israel ; and he will reign in glory among us.” The boy would ask, “ What then is the meaning of this scripture, ‘ A virgin shall con¬ ceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us ’ ; or of this, ‘ He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him ; he is wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, that by his stripes he may be healed ; or what is the meaning of your sacrifices? Why is the blood of the Paschal lamb sprinkled on the lintel of every door and upon all the sacred things of the temple ? Why this blood, blood, blood everywhere ? ” And they could only say in their bewilderment, “ It is written that if a man sin and bring a lamb without spot or blemish to the altar, his sin is taken from him.” But how can the blood of a lamb atone for sin? How can it wash away the crimson stain? They knew not.

This boy of twelve was their Messiah ; and they did not recognize him. He was the antitype of all their sacrifices. His was the blood that should cleanse from sin. Was he aware of his personality and mis¬ sion? Aye; always. The realization of his mission began with dawning consciousness. He knew who he was, whence he had come and what his errand was. Else what did he mean when he said to his mother, “ Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s busi¬ ness ? ” It is true that, in assuming mortal form, he “ emptied himself ” of the outward tokens of his Godhood; but never for a moment in such manner as to become ignorant of his mission or impotent to perform it. He “ laid his glory by,” but never so that the scepter was not within reach, and never so that the shadow of the cross was not over him.

He returned to Nazareth after this incident and be¬ came an apprentice in Joseph’s shop. As the years passed on, he grew in stature and wisdom and in favor with God and man. One day he closed the door of the carpenter shop and went out into his ministry. Three years later we find him again in the Hall Gazith in the midst of the doctors. The old priest Annas is there, grayer and more burdened with years ; and, as if moved by some strange apprehension of the truth, he cries, “ I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the living God?” Jesus answers, “Thou hast said. Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven ! ” Then the high priest rent his clothes, and said, “ He hath spoken blasphemy ; what further need have we of wit¬ nesses. What think ye?” His associates said, “He is guilty of death.”

And behold him still in the midst of the doctors. “ Where is the wise, where is the disputer of this world?” Not yet with all their wisdom have they found out God. He stands in the midst of the learned ones, “ hearing, asking, answering.” And there is none but himself in all the world to explain the three great doctrines of God and man and reconciliation. None but himself has ever answered or can answer the two questions, “ How can God be just and the justifier of the ungodly?” and “How can a man be just with God?”

Ill

In which the man of Nazareth, being everybody’s friend, gets an audience with all sorts and conditions of men.

Now it came to pass, while the multitude pressed upon him and heard the word of God, that he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret ; and he saw two boats standing by the lake: but the fishermen had gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the multitudes out of the boat. — Luke v, 1-3.

This Man was followed wherever he went by all sorts of people.1 “ The multitude pressed upon him.” He had no need to resort to adventitious methods for securing a congregation. No matter where he preached, on the sea shore, at the street corner or in Solomon’s Porch, the people flocked to hear him.

Nor did they fail to give him their attention. All the world knows that Paul was an orator; but on a certain occasion, when he was preaching at Joppa, one of his hearers was overcome with sleep. No such incident ever happened, so far as we are aware, under the preaching of Jesus. It is written, “ All bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.”

1 When it is said “ The common people heard him gladly,” we are to understand by the term “ people ” not the profanum vulgus, but, as in the margin, the multitude.

It would be interesting, were it possible, to analyze his singular power over men. To say that he pos¬ sessed all the elements of true eloquence such as sim¬ plicity, directness, picturesqueness, logical coherence, warmth, earnestness and convincing power, is not enough. Here is something beyond the homiletic or any other art. You have, perhaps, seen a portrait wrought by a great master, with eyes that had the singular quality of following you wherever you went. A like characteristic we observe in the teaching of Jesus. Coleridge expressed this in the terms, “ It finds me.” Indeed, it searches out and finds the hearts and consciences of all. Jesus was not merely able to sway an audience — others have ruled from the throne of elo¬ quence — but his influence was equally magnetic in per¬ sonal conversation. It was distributive, holding the multitude because it held every unit in it.

Were we required to put our hand on a single quality or characteristic of which we might say, “ This accounts for it,” we should name his intense human¬ ness. He was called “ the Son of Man ” not only be¬ cause of his representative relation to the race, but because he was distinctively and pre-eminently a man among men. He was able to address himself to the wants of the multitude, all and singular, by reason of his broad acquaintance and sympathy with humanity. He was an intuitive and infallible psychologist, since “ he knew what was in man.”

He was everybody’s preacher because he was every¬ body’s friend. He stood on a level with his congre¬ gation. He wore no robe but homespun ; he asked no better pulpit than the prow of a little boat or a place at the corner of a street. He touched men because he was ever in vital touch with them. And the secret of his unparalleled power lay in the fact that he had something to say, and said it.

He had something to say to the poor.

And the poor of his time were poor indeed. We make a distinction between “ God’s poor ” and the “ devil’s poor.” We take a sympathetic interest in the relief of such as are thrifty and industrious, but un¬ fortunate. Our hearts go out to those who with their best efforts find it difficult to make both ends meet or keep the wolf from the door. But Jesus had a place in his heart for the ne’er-do-weels; for the thriftless, penniless and friendless. Who cares for these? For the men with sunken cheeks and watery eyes who shuffle along our streets ? For the women whose faces are sodden with drink, drawing thin shawls around their shivering shoulders and stretching out their hands for alms? Who cares for the devil’s poor? They live forlorn and die unwept. “ Rattle his bones over the stones; he’s only a pauper whom nobody owns.” Who cares ? Christ cares ! His heart is warm with compassion for them, and all the more because they have so little pity on themselves. He hears their helpless moan, their bitter cry. Do you ask the cre¬ dentials of Jesus? Here they are: “ Go tell John that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” God be praised ! The meanest beggar in the world has one true friend who tells him hopefully that it is never too late to mend ; that though he has squandered his inheritance and is as poor as poverty, he may turn around and be rich toward God.

And he had something to say to the rich.

The rich of his time were very rich ; for the wealth of the world was then concentrated in the hands of a few. Jesus did not denounce them indiscriminately. He respected the rights of property and recognized the fact that a man may have abundant possessions, yet be a righteous man. He was, however, no sycophant. He was often entertained by persons of rank and af¬ fluence ; and his table-talk was full of searching truths. He warned his wealthy friends against avarice, say¬ ing : “ It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a man whose heart is set upon riches to enter the kingdom of God.” He warned them against the folly of spending time and energy in acquiring a mere modicum of yellow dust, saying : “ The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; and he said, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do : I will pull down my barns and build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be ? ” He told them plainly that there are rich men in hell, saying of one who had been clothed in purple and fine linen and had fared sumptuously every day, “ He lifted up his eyes being in torment.” He pointed out to them clearly that it was better to part with everything else than to lose eternal life: “ Go sell all that thou hast, and come and follow me.”

He had something to say to workingmen.

And he could say it sympathetically and effectively.

THE MAN AND THE PEOPLE S3 because he was himself a member of the Third Estate. He knew what it was to shove the plane and drive the saw and wipe the perspiration from his face at the close of a weary day. One word of his, “ The laborer is worthy of his hire,” has in it the ultimate solution of all controversies between capital and labor. But he knew the danger of the shop. He knew the prone¬ ness of the toiling class to lose themselves in the sor¬ did routine of bread-and-butter work. The truth of Carlyle’s parable respecting the men of the Dead Sea, “ They made no use of their souls and so lost them ; but they retained a bewildered and half conscious reminiscence of the time when they were men with souls responsive to the eternal verities,” was uttered by Jesus in a far more effective way. He stood, as it were, at the door of the workshop, saying, “ O men, be in your labor, yet not of it ! Let not your hand-tomouth struggle crowd out all nobler aspirations ! For the life is more than meat and the body than raiment. Behold the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. And consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, they spin not ; yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Take, therefore, no anxious thought for the morrow. But seek ye first the king¬ dom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

He had a message , also , for the wise.

Not for the “ sophoi ” ; that is, those who were wise in their own conceit. The doctors came to him with their hair-splitting questions, and he answered them never a word. But he had much to say to the “ philosophoi ” ; that is, such as desired to be wise. He gave them great truths to ponder on. He spoke to Nicodemus of regeneration, evoking the response, “ How can these things be ?” and having plainly announced the mystery, he followed it with a statement concerning the saving power of the gospel, simple as a kinder¬ garten lesson, “ As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If a man is in quest of sublim¬ ities and profundities, he shall have something to think of ; he will find in the teaching of Jesus an unfathom¬ able ocean of truth rolling before him. If he be engaged in the earnest quest of truths that make for righteousness and eternal life, he shall find them there, clear as the sun at noon-day. The Master, taking a child upon his knee, said to his hearers, “ Except ye become as this little child ” — in your attitude toward truth, in your readiness to receive it — “ ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of God.” His doctrine is, indeed, like an ocean, on the shore of which seers stand dreaming dreams and seeing visions and losing themselves in contemplation of its mysterious depths, while little children play along the edge, laughing and making merry, the waters laving their feet.

And he had a message for doubters.

Nothing for defiant infidels like Pilate, who, with a ' curling of the lip, asked, “ What is truth ? ” Not a word for boastful agnostics who said, like Pliny the elder, “ There is only one thing certain, to wit, that there is nothing certain.” His pearls of truth were not scattered before such as these. But for honest doubters, that is, those who were bewildered at the cross-roads and eager to know the way, he had always a word of comfort and encouragement. Every age is “ an age of doubt ” ; and there are always those who, having lost their bearings, long to know. One such went wandering into the darkness, after the crucifixion of Christ, like a blind man groping along the wall. Poor Thomas ! His best friend was dead, his fondest hopes were crushed. He had heard in a roundabout way of the resurrection of Jesus, but it was too good to believe. Ah, how gladly would he have believed it ! For such as he, grieving by reason of their doubt and doing their very best to be rid of it, Christ has infinite consideration. Then said he unto Thomas, “ Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.” O doubting friend, touch Jesus ! He can be touched. To know him, to commune with him, is to believe. All doubts vanish when the light of his countenance shines upon us. And Thomas answered and said unto him, “ My Lord and my God ! ”