The Master's way, a study in the synoptic Gospels

Preface

This is not a " Life of Christ." It contains a series of studies based upon the more significant actions and utterances of The Master as we find them reported in the Synoptic Gospels. These studies are arranged not always in chronological but in what I trust may be considered a logical order.

These chapters were originally published in " The Congregationalism" and are reproduced here by the gracious permission of its Editors. They have been freely retouched and in some cases entirely rewritten.

They are brought together here in this more convenient as well as more permanent form in the hope that they may serve the needs of those laymen who are teaching in our Sunday Schools or leading Bible study groups in city and college Christian Associations, or conducting lay services in missions or chapels. They were not written for the critical scholar and I shall not suffer disappointment if he passes by on the other side to find books better suited to his needs. These chapters are offered to those who, moving along the main travelled roads of human experience, would know more of " The Master's Way," that they too may walk in it with surer tread and a more resolute purpose.

Charles Reynolds Brown.

Yale University January, 1917.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. The Coming Herald. Luke i: 5-53

II. The Birth of John the Baptist. Luke 1: 57-80

II THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST Luke i : 57-80

"There was a man sent from God whose name was John." There have been many such. John the Baptist and John the Apostle stand at the head of a goodly succession. John Chrysostom, the great preacher of righteousness in the Eastern Church, and John Wy cliff e, the Morning Star of the Reformation in the Western Church, were men sent from God John Calvin and John Knox, John Milton and John Wesley, John Robinson at Scrooby and John Hall on Manhattan Island were all sent from God to bear witness to the Light. Time would fail me to tell of all the men of faith whose names were John.

Neither current custom nor the counsel of friends nor the family tradition guided the parents in bestowing this name upon their child. It was done in obedience to one of those mysterious impulses which the Hebrews simply and accurately called "the word of the Lord." The narrator loves to* think that even in these less important details the devout parents were providentially guided in the care and culture of this child who should be called "the prophet of the Highest" and be competent "to guide the feet of many in the way of peace."

The nature of this John was stern and uncompromising. He laid his ax at the root of the tree. He sought by his winnowing fan to separate the worthless chaff for the burning from the wholesome wheat to be gathered into the garner. Yet this rigorous action was dictated by love. "The goodness and the severity of God" have no quarrel. In certain situations goodness must be severe in order to be good. The unsparing severity of the surgeon cutting out some malignant growth which has become a menace stands as the highest expression of goodness. The radical opposition of John the Baptist to the sham religion of his day and to all that opposed the beneficent purpose of the Messiah whose forerunner he was, became a genuine kindness to the important interests at stake.

The unusual circumstances surrounding his birth portrayed in an earlier portion of this chapter had aroused expectation. They were esteemed prophetic intimations of coming greatness. "What manner of child shall this be?" men were saying as they saw the babe in the arms of his mother.

There were mysterious forces at work in his life which made it impossible for any definite answer to be given to this query. "The hand of the Lord was with him," the author says. "He was filled with the Holy Spirit" from the very beginning. In the presence of such energies at work and unimpeded by a refractory will we can readily believe that this life would be destined to wield a mighty significance in Christian history.

"W T hat manner of child shall this be?" No one knew. No one ever knows the unrealized possibilities of any child's life. If some woman of means should entrust to you her jewels, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, you would know instantly, when once she had stated to you their monetary value, how much poorer she would be and how much poorer the world would be, were you to drop them in the bay. But if she should entrust to you for an hour as a minister of Christ, as a teacher in the Sunday school, as an associate or an employer, her boy, then you would find yourself utterly unable to state how much poorer she would be, or how much poorer the world would be should you fail to do all that lies within your power to have that boy fulfill the highest purpose of his being.

What manner of child shall this be, if as a result of your influence and hers he becomes a Christian and invests his unfolding energies in the service of the Highest? No one can possibly predict the outcome. In the presence of the everlasting mystery of expanding and unfolding life, where the hand of the Lord is upon it for good, we stand bewildered. It is both stimulating and sobering to thus deal with interests where the full values cannot be rated immediately and given definite statement.

We have in this passage one of those early Christian hymns which have been collected in the great liturgies of the Christian Church. In the Book of Common Prayer we find the "Benedictus" the "Magnificat" and the "Nunc Dimittis" with other finished expressions of the worship of that earlier time. How many hearts have been called to the high mood of thanksgiving in those noble words of the "Benedictus!" "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people. He hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ... to give light to them that sit in darkness and to guide our feet into the way of peace !"

How many modest lives witnessing the expansion of their humble resources under the divine blessing as they were yielded in service, have found their gratitude voiced for them in the words of the "Magnificat!" "My soul doth magnify the Lord, for he that is mighty hath done to me great things. He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. ,,

How many devout souls having fought a good fight and

-lied their course, having seen the realization of their dearest hopes, have whispered at the last these words of "Nunc Dimittis!" "Now let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'' The great Christian hymns of the ages, ancient and modern, gather up the best that has been seen and felt by the resolute souls who have joyously ascended up into heaven and found God there, who have made their bed in the lowest depths of sorrow and have found him there.

The "Benedictus" was a great, brave anticipation of spiritual results to be achieved in the future under the consecrated leadership of John the Baptist and in yet fuller measure through the One for whose coming he paved the way. But so confident is the singer in his prophetic mood regarding the sure results to be attained that he speaks of them as accomplished facts. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people." His lofty ideals were grounded in that confidence of faith which at once gives substance to things hoped for, becoming immediately the credible evidence of things not seen.

He links up the past and the present in such a way as to bring out forcibly the historical continuity of that spiritual advance and to furnish reliable warrant for his high hopes. The "horn of salvation" was to be raised up in the house and from lineage of David, iel ever had. The

splendid moral f :iit would be in line with the hopes

expressed "by the mouth of the holy prop! hich have been

since the world began." The mercies performed would be those promised to the fathers in the terms of an ancient and holy covenant. The spiritual results would be the accomp'. ment of an oath which in the dim ages of the past "the Lord had sworn to their father Abraham."

The seed wheat of future harvests is to be found in the moral gains already made. The tests which have been made as men have been proving many things have made plain certain principles which abide — we shall not need to perform these experiments again. And we shall best ground our expectations for further advance as we rest them upon those enduring lessons which the ages have taught us by such profound experiences as are indicated in these splendid hymns of faith.

The work to which John was called, like the task of the man in the "secondary school," was of necessity preparatory. "Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways." It is the high office of many a life to plant trees whose fruit will not be eaten by the one who sets the roots in place. In every field of human effort patient sowers of seed are at work knowing that the glorious harvest will be reaped by other hands. So be it! There is a glory in laying foundations as well as in placing capstones.

It is only fair that each generation should take its turn in filling the role of John the Baptist. Other men have labored and we have entered into their labors. We shall only square the account as we lay foundations broad and sure on which our successors may build their finer achievements.

Count it all joy if you may in some situation the most obscure, perhaps, do a bit of honest, vital work and set it in the great process faced toward moral advance. The abiding forces of spiritual conservation will take it up and utilize it for that ultimate fulfillment which lies as yet, even for the boldest seer, far below the horizon.

"The child grew and waxed strong and was in the deserts till the day of his showing." The grim, meager, lonely character of the desert where stone and sand and barren shrub alone contend for attention with the blue sky and the burning sun, all had their counterpart in the moral development of that rugged nature which in the days of his strength would come as a voice crying in the wilderness, ''Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

Ill

THE BIRTH OF JESUS Luke 2: 1-20

"Behold I bring you good tidings!" The familiar words first fell on the listening ears of shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. They were standing guard over the helpless sheep, protecting them from the wolves and jackals, from the thieves and robbers which lurked among those Judean hills. Simple outdoor men they were, unused to theological subtleties ! Plain minds they had, accustomed to deal with concrete realities ! And to these men was made known the birth of the Messiah.

It was not the first time nor the last that splendid truths have been hidden from the wise and prudent by the very confidence of those men in their own powers of discernment and revealed to men of childlike habit of thought willing to be taught and led. The gravest charge which can be laid at the door of the learned Pharisees is that the greatest event in the moral history of the world took place under their very eyes and they did not see it. The Scribes and Pharisees were deaf to the songs in the air heard by the listening shepherds.

"Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass." The shepherds for many years had been leading their flocks in green pastures and by still waters. They may be competent to lead our minds into the presence and the meaning of this event which has altered the moral history of the race !

How strange that the birth of a child should change the calendars of the world ! The Hebrews had been dating their calendar from what they supposed to have been the period of the Creation. The Romans reckoned their time from the founding of the city on the seven hills. The Greeks reckoned their time from the first Olympic Games. But today if you meet a Hebrew or an Italian or a Greek in any part of the world and ask him what year it is, he will reply instantly, "Nineteen hundred and seventeen !" It is that long since the child was born in Bethlehem of Judea.

The child grown to be a man, exalted to be a Saviour, has so drawn the attention of mankind to himself, so gathered the forces of history into his own hands, so taken the moral government of the world upon his shoulder, as to make his birthday the fixed point from which England and America, France and Italy, Russia and Germany and all the more powerful nations of earth, reckon their time.

You think it is wonderful that wise men saw a strange star in the east, that shepherds heard songs in the air, that Luke, a Gentile physician, and Matthew, a Hebrew tax collector, recorded extraordinary conditions surrounding the birth of this child ! These things are wonderful indeed, but none of them so wonderful as the solid fact that a child born in poverty and obscurity, in an out-of-the-way village in insignificant Palestine, should have thus impressed his birthday on the leading nations of the earth.

When Jesus reached his maturity and stood up to give his first public address, he said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." A year of the Lord it was indeed ! A year of the Lord it has remained. And when we celebrated this birthday last December we wrote it, "December 25th, 1916, in the year of our Lord" !

Whatever else may be uncertain this is sure. However we may be confused touching the place of Christ in the ordinary categories of human existence, here is that which is undeniable. Here stands the great fact of Christ, born into the world, steadily building himself into its intricate life, giving direction to the flow of its best thought, making his principles and methods the head of the corner, changing the calendars and changing the ideals of men so that we measure them according to their distance from him! Let us indeed go to Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass !

"Born this day in the city of David !" He was not a celestial being descending out of the clouds, detached, unrelated, unorganized with this human life of ours. He was born of a woman. He sprang from the house and lineage of David. If the human and the divine were set over against each other in irreconcilable difference then such a statement might bring permanent confusion. But the gospel proclaims the fact that between the human and the divine there exists a necessary and abiding kinship like that between the branch and the vine, the parent and the child. It is possible, therefore, that one born into our human needs and duties, into our human sorrows and delights should be at once Son of God and Son of Man.

The fact of the incarnation is the revelation in time and at one place of a truth universal and abiding. The tabernacle of God in the last analysis is not in the skies — "the tabernacle of God is with men," and he dwells with them. There was born to us in a certain family and in a certain village, into a certain system of instruction, into a certain form of industry, into a certain stage of the world's political and religious unfolding, a fresh expression of the nearness and the helpfulness of the Infinite Spirit. There was born to us in that city of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

The gift of Christ to be the Saviour of men is commonly regarded as God's supreme appeal to the conscience of the race. "Last of all he sent his Son, saying, They will reverence my son." The claim does not rest on an arbitrary assertion. Who can stand beside him? Bring forward a more searching or helpful message than that found in his gospel and every minister in Christendom will declare it to his people. Bring a profounder source of motive and stimulus for right living than the one uncovered in his word and we will gladly use it in place of the accepted evangel. Bring something better to hold before the hearts of sorrow or the lives that have suffered moral defeat and we shall utilize it. But the offer of spiritual help superior to that found in the Christ is not forthcoming. Last of all and best of all, he sent his Son !

"To whom shall we go?" — the question is imperative. Somewhere we must go for our thought of God, for a final philosophy of life, for some sufficing source of spiritual energy to renew our depleted strength. We want the best — "To whom shall we go ?" Let us go with the shepherds to Bethlehem and there in the face of Jesus Christ as his life matures we shall discern the character and disposition of the Eternal Father.

There in the matchless teaching of this Christ, when his lips shall have shaped themselves to our mode of speech, we shall hear the true philosophy of human existence. There in vital fellowship with him who was born in the city of David we shall gain renewal for all the springs of action. In that Saviour who is Christ the Lord, we discover an abiding source of moral help. Let us go to Bethlehem and meditate upon the things which have come to pass since that memorable night. We shall find ourselves moved to sing with fresh meaning, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and good will toward men."

"They came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger." Rough and rude were the physical surroundings. Joseph and Mary were poor. Even on that crucial night no better accommodation could they afford. The eyes of Luke the physician, accustomed to witness the stress of human existence, noted the pathetic details of the situation. In "the gospel of the Son of Man" we find the touches which most nearly relate this august life to all our plainest needs and sorest trials.

But the life which must borrow its glory from its surroundings shows the saddest poverty. The houses we live in, the chairs we sit upon, the clothes we wear are minor matters. Jesus borrowed nothing from his surroundings. He needed nothing. He was cradled in a manger. He was reared in the meagerness of little Nazareth, feeling the privations of a carpenter's home. He knew months of self-denial when he had not where to lay his head. He was destined to die not in a bed but on a cross and his body would be laid in a borrowed tomb. His rude birthplace was prophetic of the whole setting which would be given to his life.

How little it mattered ! The life is more than meat. The body is more than raiment. And the soul within is a thousandfold more than either. The inner worth and the power to serve in any life become the true measure of its glory all apart from the accidents of its outer wrapping. The coarse appraisement made by current standards of success and wellbeing seem weak and mean in the presence of values which outlast and outshine the stars.

"The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for the things which they had seen and heard." They went back to the same old life of hardship and anxiety, but they went now in a new mood. The old earth is a different place when once it is seen to have a sky above it. The atmosphere of the field or of the shop is changed when once it has been filled with the songs of the angels. The Christmas message infuses new meaning and beauty into the old life of toil.

Have you never walked at night when the stars seemed nearer than the tree-tops, when to your own eyes the sky was aglow with an unwonted radiance? Have you never known some high hour when a heavenly host seemed to sweep into your vision? Have you never heard songs in the air which fell from no human lips? If you have never known such moments then, alas, for the meagerness of your inner life ! But if you have entered upon these higher moods, your own heart will be the best interpreter of these stories of the Nativity.

IV The Star In The East

Matthew 2

"We have seen his star in the East!" The initial impulse of every great religion has come not from the bustling, practical, inventive West but from the meditating and contemplative East. There is Judaism ! In every synagogue in Europe and America the Rabbi stands and points eastward to the valley of the Euphrates. There he sees Abraham, the founder of his faith, following the leading of the divine spirit, and going out from his idolatrous surroundings to rear his family in the worship of one God. The cradle of Judaism was in the East.

There are the Buddhists ! Theirs has been a missionary faith. It has spread from land to land. But in the Buddhist temples of Colombo and of Singapore, of Lhasa and of Tokyo the uniform habit is to point back to that sacred seat under the Bo-tree where Gautama sat for six years silent, receptive, prayerful, until the illumination came. The cradle of Buddhism was in the far East.

There are the Moslems, powerful, aggressive, fanatical in their allegiance to Islam! Whether you find them under the Southern Cross or on the high tablelands in Thibet or along the Bosphorus they are faced toward Arabia where Mohammed made his flight from Mecca to Medina, where the Koran was written to teach men, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." The cradle of Islam was in the East.

And our own Christian faith as well ! It has won its greatest victories, it has come to its fullest vigor and maturity in

Europe and America, but this is not its native soil. The great Christian cathedrals of Europe are built always with the altar end to the east that worshipers may habitually face toward the quarter whence light has come. It is an added testimony in stone, mute but enduring, as to the birthplace of our faith.

Jesus was an Oriental. His flowing robes, his style of speech, his manner of life, all belong to the East. When we read therefore of a mysterious star seen by wise men in the East it matches the rest. The self-perpetuating missionary religions have all come from the East.

The wise men came from the East with this fundamental inquiry on their lips, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" The Jews were the spiritual leaders of the race and "the King of the Jews" might well be king of the whole moral realm. It was a fundamental inquiry which they brought. Where in this visible universe, where in recorded history has the Almighty given that tangible expression of himself before which wise men may bow in final allegiance?

This fundamental question was first asked by men of insight and judgment — wise men they were. It was asked by men of moral earnestness — it was in no spirit of idle curiosity that they made this journey across the sands in search of the Coining One. It was asked by resolute men willing to give of their best when they found the object of their quest. When they saw the One whom they sought they opened their treasures and laid at his feet gold, frankincense and myrrh, the value, the beauty and the fragrance of their love. They asked their question as wise, earnest, generous men, and they found their answer in the child born in Bethlehem of Judea.

The wise men undertook their quest in dim uncertain starlight. They had some intimation that a Messiah would come. Then they learned the name of his country — he was to be born "King of the Jews." They followed up this clew until by diligent, persistent search they knew the name of the town — it was Bethlehem in Judea. At last they knelt before the One they sought and rose up ennobled and enriched. The man who takes his own uncertain vision of the Eternal Goodness, of the divine purpose for him, of the privileges he might enjoy at the hands of spiritual reality and follows on, will find at last that which satisfies the utmost demand of reason and aspiration.

It was a time of expectancy at Jerusalem also. The students of Scripture searching the ancient prophets believed that some glorious fulfillment was at hand. To the listening ears and sensitive hearts of shepherds keeping watch over their flocks, the air became vocal with mysterious meaning. Devout saints like Simeon and Anna were waiting for the consolation of Israel.

We find this spirit communicated to those who were morally careless, even as the spirit of Christmas finds its way into many a profane place. "Herod the king was troubled" lest this Coming One might dispute with him the right to reign. He summoned the chief priests and demanded of them where the Messiah should be born. He had an interview with the wise men inquiring anxiously as to the meaning of the strange portent in the sky. Finally he said, insincerely, but voicing the dominant mood at Jerusalem, "Search diligently for the young child and when ye have found him, bring me word, that I may come and worship him also."

They found him in the manger of a stable ! The people of that generation found him ever amid the lowliest surroundings. He was cradled in the modest home of one who wrought with saw and plane. He was reared in a community so unpromising that it had become a proverb, "Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." He was so cramped in resource that for months he had no place to lay his head. He was scorned by the titled and the powerful in church and state. He was compelled to choose his intimates from the peasants, the fishermen and the farmers of that region. He was doomed to die upon a cross between two thieves. In his whole life the advantage of outward circumstances was reduced to its lowest terms.

But greatness in the realm where he was born king does not lie in externals. The place of one's birth, the elegance or the simplicity of one's surroundings, the length of one's bank account, the petty social distinctions so vital to many minds — all these are minor matters. Real greatness is measured in terms of personality. The power to see and to say, the ability to feel and to aspire, the strength to act and to serve, this alone makes a life great.

There are many who search diligently for him among those ecclesiastical splendors which have come in his name- They feel that if they can but enter the stateliest, costliest cathedral it has entered into the heart of man to build; if they can listen to loud swelling anthems and Te Deums where Christ's name is enshrined; if they can inhale the fragrance of those clouds of incense which rise before him from many altars; if they can participate in the gorgeous ceremonial of the Christian Church in its most ornate form, they will find the One who will bring peace to their souls.

But the hint given us in those original lowly surroundings where the wise men found him is not to be disregarded. We shall come nearer to the energy of his holy will, to the beneficence of his gracious purpose, to the healing touch of his boundless compassion, if we look for him in quite another quarter. Let memory and moral imagination fill in the requisite material to complete this ellipsis, "Inasmuch . . . unto Me!'' When you have done that you will know where to search for him.

In those impulses of fidelity, devotion, tenderness which make the intimacies of domestic life sweet and sacred ; in those integrities, heroisms, humane considerations which redeem commercial and industrial life from its sordidness ; in that splendid adherence to principle and that subordination of private interest to the public good which lifts political life to its rightful dignity; in those lovely, thoughtful, affectionate outgoings of kindliness which are aiding the poor, the needy, the struggling to a more equitable share in the good things of God — in all these Christ is born anew to be king over the lives of men. In all these Christ dwells. If we "search diligently" we shall there find him.

Search diligently and you will find Christ at the head of the best thought, the purest desire, the noblest resolve for the betterment of the race ! Find that and you find him. Cast in your lot with that and you are following him. Make intelligent consecration of your best powers to the lines of effort proposed by the best thought, the purest desire, the noblest resolve discoverable in Christian society and you lay at his feet your gold and frankincense and myrrh.