Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
Religious Studies, Sketches and Poems
It is an example, too, that may with advantage be studied in conducting the discipline of a church. Here was the worst of criminals meditating the deepest injuries, the worst of crimes, in the very bosom of the infant church, yet our Lord so bore with him, so ruled and guided his little family that there was no quarrel and struggle, – that the very best and most was made of his talents as long as they could be used for good, – and when he departed the church was not rent and torn as a demoniac by the passage from them of an evil spirit.
But there were other respects in which Jesus trained his church, besides that of managing a discordant element within it. There were many who would become disciples from sudden impulse or sympathy, who had not the moral stamina to go on to spiritual perfection. Aware of this, the Master, while ever gracious, ever ready to receive, exacted no binding pledge or oath. He displayed no eagerness to get men to commit themselves in this way, but rather the reverse. Whoever came saying, "Lord, I will follow thee," met a gracious reception. Yet the seeker was warned that he must take up his cross, and that without this he could not be a disciple. He was admonished to count the cost, lest he should begin to build and not be able to finish. In some cases, as that of the young nobleman, the tests proposed were so severe that the man went away sorrowful; and yet, for all this, the heart of the Master was freely open to all who chose to follow him.
But as Jesus would take none without full warning of the stringency of his exactions, so he would retain none a moment beyond the time when their hearts were fully in it. Free they were to come as God's love is free – free also to go, if on trial they found the doctrine or discipline too hard for them. Christ gathered his spiritual army on the principles on which Moses commanded that the army of Israel should be gathered for battle, when proclamation was made that any one who for any reason was not fully in good heart should go home, "What man is fearful or faint-hearted, let him go and return to his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his."
There is a very striking passage in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, where Jesus, in the most stringent and earnest manner, spoke of the necessity of eating his flesh and drinking his blood; or, in other words, of an appropriating and identifying union of soul with himself as constituting true discipleship. This exposé of the inner depths of real spiritual life repelled some, as it is written: —
"Many, therefore, of his disciples said: This is a hard saying. Who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured, he said: Doth this offend you?.. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who believed not and who should betray him."
From that time, we are told, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. They left the church; and we read of no effort to discipline or retain them. The spiritual life of the church expelled them by the law of moral repulsion; they felt they were not of it, and they left, and were suffered to leave. The only comment we read of as being made by the Lord was this: "Then said Jesus to the twelve: Will ye also go away?" There was the door, freely open, would they, too, go? Then said Peter: "Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ."
We can see here what was the sifting process by which our Lord kept his little church pure. It was the union of vivid spirituality with perfect freedom. The doors of entrance and of exit were freely open; and those who could not bear the intense and glowing spiritual life were at all times free to depart; in the words subsequently used by the Apostle, "they judged themselves unworthy of eternal life." Hence, like a vigorous human body, Christ's little church threw out from itself the unvital members, and kept itself healthy and strong. This perfect freedom to depart at any time constituted the strength of the little order. Its members were held together, not by a dead covenant, not by a conventional necessity, not by past vows uttered in high excitement – but by a living choice of the soul, renewed from moment to moment. Even the twelve had presented to them the choice to go away, and took anew their vow of constancy. Hence it was that even the astounding horrors of the sudden fall – the crucifixion of the Master – did not break their ranks. There were none left but those so vitally united to him, so "one with him" that, as he said, they "lived by him." He was their life; they followed him to the cross and to the grave; they watched the sepulchre, and were ready to meet him in the resurrection morning. It was this tried and sifted remnant to whom he appeared when the doors were closed, after the resurrection, on whom he breathed peace and the Holy Ghost, and whose spiritual judgments and decisions he promised should thereafter be ratified in heaven.
This little company were, as nearly as human beings can be, rooted and grounded in perfect love. The lesson of their lives had been love, taught them by precept from day to day, as he harmonized their contentions and repressed their selfish ambitions; and by example, as he persistently tolerated, loved, bore with a treacherous friend in his own family.
It was necessary that they should be prepared to exercise power, for power was about to be intrusted to them. It was necessary to prepare them to be the governors of the future Christian Church. But he was unwearied in efforts to make them understand that superiority must only be a superiority in doing and suffering for others. When the mother of James and John asked the highest two offices for her two sons, he looked at her with a pathetic sadness. Did she know what she was asking? Did she know that to be nearest to him was to suffer most? He answered: "You know not what you ask. Can you drink of the cup that I shall drink, and be baptized with my baptism?" And when they ignorantly said, "We are able," he said that the place of superiority was not his to give by any personal partiality, but was reserved for the appointment of the Father. But the ambitious spirit now roused had spread to the other disciples. It is said that when the ten heard it they were indignant with James and John. But Jesus called them to him and said: —
"Ye know that they that are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever shall be great among you let him be your minister, and whosoever will be the chiefest let him be servant of all; for even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give his life a ransom for many."
One of the very last acts of his life, and one of the most affecting comments on these words, was his washing his disciples' feet as a menial servant – a last significant act, which might almost be called a sacrament, since by it he, in view of his dying hour, put this last impressive seal on his teaching of humanity and brotherly love.
The contest which should be the greatest, in spite of all his efforts, all his teachings, all his rebukes, had only smouldered, not been extinguished, and was ready at any moment to flame out again, and all the way up to Jerusalem when he came to die they walked behind him quarreling over this old point. As a dying mother calling her children around her confirms her life-teaching by some last act of love never to be forgotten, so this Master and Friend before the last supper knelt in humility at the feet of each disciple and washed and wiped them, and then interpreted the act as a sign of the spirit in which leadership in his church should be sought: "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet." In after years the disciples could not but remember that Jesus knelt at the feet of Judas and washed them as meekly as those of all the rest; and then they saw what he meant when he said, "Love your enemies."
From first to last the teaching of Christ was one long teaching of the doctrine and discipline of perfect love. When the multitudes followed him, and he went into a mountain to give his summary of the new dispensation, we hear of no high, mystical doctrines. We hear doctrines against censoriousness, against the habit of judging others. We hear men cautioned to look on their own faults, not on those of others. We hear love like the perfect love of God set up as the great doctrine of the new kingdom – love which no injury, no unworthiness, no selfishness can chill, or alter, or turn aside; which, like God's providence, shines on the evil and unthankful, and sends rain on the just and the unjust – this mystery of love, deeper than the mystery of the Trinity, was what, from first to last, the Master sought to make his little church comprehend.
This love to enemies, this forgiveness, was the hardest of hard doctrines to them. "Lord, how often shall my brother transgress and I forgive him?" says Peter; "till seven times?" "Nay," answers Jesus, "till seventy times seven." "If thy brother trespass against thee seven times a day, and seven times turn again saying, 'I repent,' thou shalt forgive him." The Master taught that no religious ordinance, no outward service, was so important as to maintain love unbroken. If a gift were brought to the altar, and there it were discovered that a brother were grieved or offended, the gift was to be left unoffered till a reconciliation was sought.
It is not merely with the brother who has given us cause of offense, but the brother who, however unreasonably, deems himself hurt by us, that we are commanded to seek reconciliation before we can approach a Heavenly Father.
A band of men and women thus trained in the school of Jesus, careful to look on their own faults, refraining from judging those of others, unselfish and lowly, seeking only to do and to serve, so perfected in a divine love that the most bitter and cruel personal injuries could not move to bitterness or revenge – such a church is in a fit state to administer discipline. It has the Holy Spirit of Jesus with it; and it may be said, without superstitious credulity, of a church in that spirit that its decisions will be so in accordance with the will of God that "whosesoever sins they remit are remitted, and whosesoever sins they retain are retained."
But where have we such a church?
The church of the Master was one of those beautiful ideals, fair as the frost-crystals or the dew-drops of morning. It required a present Jesus to hold it, and then with what constant watchfulness and care and admonition on his part was it kept! We can only study at his marvelous training, and gather some humble inspiration. It was this church of Jesus, the Master, this tried, sifted, suffering body of faithful men and women whose prayers brought down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and inaugurated the Apostolic Church.
XXI
JUDAS
It is one of the mysteries in the life of our Lord that he was led by the immediate direction of the Father to incorporate into his little family, and to bring into the closest personal relations with himself, an unsympathetic and adverse element that must have been a source of continual pain to him.
It was after a whole night spent in prayer for the divine direction that the first twelve Apostles were chosen; and Judas also was one of them. The history of this man is a wonder and a warning. That there could possibly be a human being who could have such advantages, could rise to such a height of spiritual power and joy, and yet in the end prove to be utterly without any true spiritual life seems fearful.
It would appear that Judas had at first a sort of worldly enthusiasm for Christ and his kingdom; that he received the divine gift of miracle-working; that he went forth preaching and healing, and felt all the exultation and joy which the sense of spiritual power and influence gives. Judas was among those who returned from the first missionary tour in triumph, saying, "Lord, even the devils were subject unto us!" The grave answer of Jesus reminded them that it was of far more importance to be really accepted of God as true Christians than to have the most brilliant gifts and powers.
In our Lord's first Sermon on the Mount, which may be considered as an ordaining charge to his Apostles, he had said to them that in the great final day of Judgment there would be many who would say unto him, "Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I say to them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Everywhere in the New Testament these miraculous powers are spoken of as something of far less value than the true Christian spirit, and, if we may trust the word of our Master, many had them whom he will never acknowledge for his own.
But the warning fell on the ear of Judas unheeded. Perhaps he did not himself know how selfish and self-seeking was his zeal for the coming kingdom. Generally speaking, the first person deceived by a man who plays a false part is himself. Judas appears not to have excited the suspicions of the little company of brethren. His shrewdness and tact in managing financial matters led them to appoint him the treasurer of the common family purse. Without doubt, what he saw of the enthusiastic love which Jesus excited, the ease with which he could make people willing to lay their fortunes at his feet, opened to his view dazzling golden visions. He saw himself treasurer of a kingdom unequaled in splendor and riches, when all the kingdoms of the world should be subject to his master. It was more than the reign of Solomon, when gold was to be as the stones of the street.
If we notice our Lord's teachings delivered in the hearing of Judas, we must be struck with the explicit and forcible manner in which he constantly pointed out the danger of the worldly spirit which was growing upon that disciple. How solemn the picture of the rich man, absorbed in plans and calculations how to bestow his great wealth until God says to him, "Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee – then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided?" "So," he adds, "is every one that layeth up riches, and is not rich towards God." Again, he tells them that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. He asks them, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
We hear nothing of any replies that Judas makes to these teachings. He seldom is represented dramatically. Peter, James, John, and Thomas, all present themselves vividly to our mind by the things that they say; but Judas is silent. The Master, who knew him so well, did not expose him to the others. He did not lessen their brotherly regard or interrupt the peace of his little family by any effort at expulsion. As his Father had chosen this member to be in intimate nearness to himself, Jesus accepted him, bore with him, loved him, and treated him to the last with the same unvarying sweetness that he showed to the more congenial natures. It is affecting to remember that the very act by which Christ was betrayed was one that showed that all the external habits of affection remained still unbroken between him and the traitor. The kiss of Jesus was sincere; he loved this wretched man as heavenly beings love, and followed him with love to the last.
It would seem that towards the last part of the life of Jesus the moral antagonism between himself and Judas grew more pronounced and intense.
As the spiritual life of Jesus waxed brighter and stronger, so much the more vivid became the contrast between it and the worldly aims of the traitor. Judas saw the kind of worldly prosperity to which he had aspired receding. He saw that Jesus, instead of using his splendid miraculous powers to draw towards him the chiefs of his nation, was becoming every day more in antagonism with them. Instead of meeting the popular desire to make him a king he had drawn back from it, and by that very act lost many followers. His extreme spiritual teachings had disgusted many of his disciples and led them to go back and walk no more with him. And now the talk of Jesus was more and more of persecutions and sufferings and death, as lying just before him. To a worldly eye all this looked like a fanatical throwing away of the very brightest opportunity for fame and fortune and dominion that ever was given to a leader. Judas became sullenly discontented, not yet ready openly to throw off all hopes of what might be got by adhering to his Master, but yet in a critical and fault-finding spirit surveying all his actions.
It is an awful thought that it was possible for a man to share the daily bread of Jesus, to be in his family, treated as a beloved child, to hear all his beautiful words, to listen to his prayers day after day, and yet, instead of melting, to grow colder and harder – to grow more earthly as his Master grew more heavenly, and to find this want of sympathy slowly hardening into a sullen enmity which only waited its hour to declare itself openly. Christ said to the unbelieving Jews, "Ye have both seen and hated both Me and my Father." Judas was fast preparing to join that party.
According to the narrative of St. Matthew, it was after this rebuke in the matter of Mary that Judas went into negotiations with those who were plotting the destruction of Jesus. He was a disappointed man. He had joined a party which he confidently expected to lead to triumph, success, and wealth. Instead of this, Jesus had lost every opportunity, lost the favorable hour of popularity, and concentrated on himself the hatred of the most powerful men of the nation, and now was talking only of defeat and rejection.
The presence of Judas with the household was now that of a spy, watching his occasion, but making no outward demonstration. He was in the little family circle that gathered in the upper room to eat the last passover supper. His Master bent at his feet and washed them, as he did those of the faithful ones, in that sacramental action when he showed them what he meant by true love. It was directly after this last act of affection that Jesus openly declared his knowledge of the meditated treachery, for he said: "I speak not of you all, I know whom I have chosen; but the Scripture must be fulfilled which saith, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me." Then with a deep sigh he adds in plain words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, one of you shall betray me."
It is a most lovely comment on the goodness of heart of these simple men that in so solemn a moment no one of them thought of criminating the other. Each one said tremblingly, "Lord, is it I?"
John, leaning down on his Master's breast, inquired privately who it was; and Jesus gave him a private sign that it should be he to whom he gave a sop when he had dipped it. He dipped the sop, and gave it to Judas. Then Judas, still keeping up the show of innocence, said, like the rest, "Master, is it I?" Jesus answered, "Thou hast said it."
It is said that "Satan entered into him" at this moment. All the smouldering elements of meanness, disgust, dislike of Jesus, his teaching, his spirit, and his mission were quickened by the presence of that invisible enemy who comes to the heart of man only when he is called by the congenial indulgence of wicked passions.
Judas rose hastily, and our Lord added, "That thou doest, do quickly." He flung himself out and was gone.
The miserable sum for which he sold his Master, though inconsiderable in itself, was probably offered as first wages in a new service. His new masters were the heads of Israel: all avenues of patronage and power were in their hands, and the fortune that he could not make on the side of Jesus he might hope to gather on that of his enemies. He may have compounded with his conscience by believing that the miraculous power of our Lord was such that there was no danger of a fatal termination. In fact, that his being taken might force him to declare himself and bring on the triumphant moment of victory. He might possibly have said to himself that he was at any rate acting the part of a mediator in bringing matters to a crisis, and perhaps forcing a favorable result. For, when he found that Jesus was indeed a victim, he was overwhelmed with remorse and despair. He threw the wretched money at the feet of his tempters and departed and hanged himself, and went, as we are told, "to his own place."
He went to the place for which he had fitted himself, who, living in the very bosom of Jesus, had grown more and more unlike him every day. He left Christ – driven by no force but his own wicked will. To the last the love of God pursued him: his Master knelt and washed the very feet that were so soon to hasten to betray him. It was with a sorrowful spirit, a troubled heart, that Jesus said, "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed: good were it for that man if he never had been born."
Without attempting to solve the mysteries of this deepest of all tragedies, we may yet see some of the uses and purposes of it in regard to ourselves.
Our Lord was appointed to suffer in all respects as his brethren; and the suffering of bearing with antagonistic and uncongenial natures is one that the providence of God often imposes on us. There are often bound to us, in the closest intimacy of social or family ties, natures hard and ungenial, with whom sympathy is impossible, and whose daily presence necessitates a constant conflict with an adverse influence. There are, too, enemies – open or secret – whose enmity we may feel yet cannot define. Our Lord, going before us in this hard way, showed us how we should walk.
It will be appropriate to the solemn self-examination of the period of Lent to ask ourselves, Is there any false friend or covert enemy whom we must learn to tolerate, to forbear with, to pity and forgive? Can we in silent offices of love wash their feet as our Master washed the feet of Judas? And if we have no real enemies, are there any bound to us in the relations of life whose habits and ways are annoying and distasteful to us? Can we bear with them in love? Can we avoid harsh judgments, and harsh speech, and the making known to others our annoyance? Could we through storms of obloquy and evil report keep calmly on in duty, unruffled in love, and commending ourselves to the judgment of God? The examination will probably teach us to feel the infinite distance between us and our divine Ideal, and change censoriousness of others into prayer for ourselves.
