Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
Religious Studies, Sketches and Poems
XVI
THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF JESUS
There was one great characteristic in the life of Jesus which his followers succeed in imitating less than any other, and that is a singular sweetness and attractiveness which drew toward him even the sinful and fallen. There are the most obvious indications in all the narrative that Christ's virtue was not of the repellent kind that drove sinners away from him, but that there was around him a peculiar charm and graciousness of manner which affected the most uncongenial characters.
We are all familiar with a style of goodness quite the reverse of this – a goodness that is terrible to evil-doers – a goodness that is instinctively felt to have no sympathy with the sinner. Such was the virtue of Christ's great forerunner, John the Baptist. He commanded, but did not charm; the attraction that drew men toward him was that of mingled fear and curiosity, but there was no tenderness in it. When the Scribes and Pharisees flocked to his baptism, he met them with a thunderbolt: "O generation of vipers! who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" He declined all social joys; he would not eat or drink at men's tables; he dwelt alone in the deserts, appearing as a Voice– a voice of warning and terror! His disciples were few; he took no pains to make them more.
But even this stern and rugged nature felt the charm and sweetness of Jesus, as something different from himself. It is very touching to read how the peculiar demeanor of Jesus impressed this hardy old warrior: "And looking on Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." The words seem as if they might have been said with tears in the eyes. Immediately two of his few disciples left him and followed Jesus; and he was content. "He must increase and I must decrease," he said humbly. "He that is from Heaven is above all."
We find that Jesus loved social life and the fellowship of men. Though he spent the first forty days after his mission began in the solitude of the desert, yet he returned from it the same warm-hearted and social being as before. The first appearance that he made was at a wedding-feast, and his very first miracle was wrought to enhance its joy. A wedding-feast in those lands meant more than with us. It was not merely an hour given to festivity, but lasted from three to seven days. There were large gatherings of relations and friends from afar; there were dances and songs, and every form of rejoicing; and at this particular feast in Cana it seems Jesus and his mother were present as honored and beloved guests. His gentleness and affability led his mother to feel that she might perhaps gain from him an aid to the inadequate provision made for the hospitality of the occasion. His reply to her has been deemed abrupt and severe. That it was not so understood by his mother herself is evident from the fact that she did not accept it as a refusal, but expected a compliance, and gave orders to prepare for it. It was necessary when among relatives in his family circle to express with great decision the idea that his miraculous powers were not to be considered as in any way under the control of his private and human affections, and that he must use them only as a Higher Power should direct.
His presence at this wedding was significant of that divine love which ever watches over the family, and the wine that he gave symbolized that cheer and support which God's ever-present love and sympathy pours through all the life of the household. We gather incidentally from many seemingly casual statements that Jesus was often invited to feasts in the houses of both rich and poor, and cheerfully accepted these invitations even on the Sabbath day.
He seems to have been also especially attractive to little children; he loved them and noticed them; and it would seem from some parts of the Gospel narrative as if the little ones watched for his coming and ran to his arms instinctively. Their artless, loving smiles, their clear, candid eyes, reminded him of that world of love where he had dwelt before he came to our earth, and he said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." It was the sense that he loved little ones that led mothers to force their way with their infants through reproving and unsympathetic disciples; there was that about Jesus which made every mother sure that he would love her child, and that the very touch of his hands would bring a blessing upon it; and when his disciples treated the effort as an intrusion it is said "Jesus was much displeased." He did not merely accept or tolerate the movement, but entered into it with warmth and enthusiasm; he did not coldly lay the tips of his sacred fingers on them, but took them up in his arms and laid his hands on them and blessed them; he embraced them and held them to his heart as something that he would make peculiarly his own.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Jesus was the children's favorite, and that on his last triumphal entrance into Jerusalem the hosannas of the children in the temple should have been so loud and so persistent as to excite the anger of the priests and Scribes. They called on him to silence the little voices, as if they felt sure that he could control them by a word; but that word Jesus refused to speak. The voices of these young birds of paradise were dear to him, and he said indignantly, "If these were forbidden to speak the very stones would cry out."
But still more remarkable is the fact that Jesus was attractive to a class who as a general thing hate and flee from religious teachers. The publicans and sinners, the disreputable and godless classes, felt themselves strangely drawn to him. If we remember how intensely bitter was the Jewish sense of degradation in being under Roman taxation, and how hardly and cruelly the office of collecting that tribute was often exercised, we may well think that only Jews who cared little for the opinions of their countrymen, and had little character to lose, would undertake it. We know there are in all our cities desperate and perishing classes inhabiting regions where it would be hardly safe for a reputable person to walk. Yet in regions like these the pure apparition of Jesus of Nazareth walked serene, and all hearts were drawn to him.
What was the charm about him, that he whose rule of morality was stricter than that of Scribes or Pharisees yet attracted and drew after him the most abandoned classes? They saw that he loved them. Yes, he really loved them. The infinite love of God looked through his eyes, breathed in his voice, and shed a persuasive charm through all his words. To the intellectual and cultured men of the better classes his word was, "Ye must be born again;" but to these poor wanderers he said, "Ye may be born again. All is not lost. Purity, love, a higher life, are all for you," – and he said it with such energy, such vital warmth of sympathy, that they believed him. They crowded round him and he welcomed them; they invited him to their houses and he went; he sat with them at table; he held their little ones in his arms; he gave himself to them. When the Scribes and Pharisees murmured at this intimacy, he answered, "The whole need not the Physician, but those that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." His most beautiful parables, of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal Son, were all poured out of the fullness of his heart for them – and what a heart! What news indeed, to these lost ones, to be told that their Father cared for them the more because they were lost; that he went after them because they wandered; and that all around the pure throne of God were pitying eyes watching for their return, and strong hands of welcome stretched out to aid them back. No wonder that the poor lost woman of the street had such a courage and hope awakened in her that she pressed through the sneering throng, and under the very eyes of Scribe and Pharisee found her refuge and rest at the gracious feet of such a Master. No wonder that Matthew the publican rose up at once from the receipt of custom and left all to follow that Jesus, who had taught him that he too might be a son of God.
And we read of one Zaccheus, a poor worldly little man, who had lived a hard, sharp, extortionate life, and perhaps was supposed to have nothing good in him; but even he felt a singular internal stir and longing for something higher, awakened by this preacher, and when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing he ran and climbed a tree that he might look on him as he passed. But the gracious Stranger paused under the tree, and a sweet, cheerful voice said, "Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for to-day I must dine at thy house." Trembling, scarce able to believe his good fortune, we are told he came down and received Jesus joyfully. Immediately, as flowers burst out under spring sunshine, awoke the virtues in that heart: "Lord, half my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything by false accusation I restore fourfold." This shows that the influence of Jesus was no mere sentimental attraction, but a vital, spiritual force, corresponding to what was said of him: "As many as received him to them gave he power to become sons of God."
It is a mistake to suppose that wicked people are happy in wickedness. Wrong-doing is often a sorrowful chain and burden, and those who bear it are often despairingly conscious of their degradation.
Jesus carried with him the power not only to heal the body but to cure the soul, to give the vigor of a new spiritual life, the joy of a sense of recovered purity. He was not merely able to say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," but also, "Go in peace;" and the peace was real and permanent.
Another reason for the attractiveness of Jesus was the value he set on human affections. The great ones of the earth often carry an atmosphere about them that withers the heart with a sense of insignificance. Every soul longs to be something to the object of its regard, and the thought, "My love is nothing to him," is a chilling one. But Christ asked for love – valued it. No matter how poor, how lowly, how sinful in time past, the love of a repentant soul he accepted as a priceless treasure. He set the loving sinner above the cold-hearted Pharisee. He asked not only for love, but for intimacy – he asked for the whole heart; and there are many desolate ones in this cheerless earth to whom it is a new life to know that a godlike Being cares for their love.
The great external sufferings of Christ and the prophetic prediction that he should be a "man of sorrows" have been dwelt upon so much that we sometimes forget the many passages in the New Testament which show that the spiritual atmosphere of Christ was one of joy. He brought to those that received him a sense of rest and peace and joy. St. John speaks of him as "Light." He answered those who asked why his disciples did not fast like those of John, by an image which showed that his very presence made life a season of festivity: "Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them?" What a beautiful picture of a possible life is given in his teaching. God he speaks of as "your Father." All the prophets and teachers that came before spoke of him as "the Lord." Christ called him simply "The Father," as if to intimate that Fatherhood was the highest and most perfect expression of the great Invisible. He said, therefore, to the toiling race of man: "Be not anxious, your Father in Heaven will take care of you. He forgets not even a little sparrow, and he certainly will not forget you. Go to him with all your wants. You would not forget your children's prayers; and your Father in Heaven is better than you. Be loving, be kind, be generous and sweet-hearted; if men hate you, love and pray for them; and you will be your Father's children."
See how the man Jesus, who was to his disciples the Master, Christ, had power to comfort them in distress, and how not only his own followers, but also those of his great forerunner, John, were naturally drawn to confide their troubles to him.
These disciples who took up the Baptist's disfigured body after spite and contempt and hate had done their worst on it, who paid their last tribute of reverence and respect amid the scoffs of a jeering world, were men – men of deep emotions and keen feelings; and probably at that moment every capability of feeling they had was fully aroused.
It appears from the first chapter of John, that he and others were originally the disciples of the Baptist during the days of his first powerful ministry, and had been by him pointed to Jesus. We see in other places that the Apostle John had an intense power of indignation, and was of that nature that longed to grasp the thunderbolts when he saw injustice. It was John that wanted to bring down fire from heaven on the village that refused to shelter Christ, and can we doubt that his whole soul was moved with the most fiery indignation at wrong and cruelty like this? For Christ himself had said of the martyr thus sacrificed: "Among those that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." He had done a great work; he had swayed the hearts of all his countrymen; he had been the instrument of the most powerful revival of religion known in his times. There had been a time when his name was in every mouth; when all Jerusalem and Judæa, and beyond Jordan, thronged to his ministry – even the Scribes and Pharisees joining the multitude. And now what an end of so noble a man! Seized and imprisoned at the behest of an adulterous woman whose sin he had rebuked, shut up in prison, his ministry ended, all his power for good taken away, and finally finishing his life under circumstances which mark more than any other could the contempt and indifference which the great gay world of his day had for goodness and greatness! The head of a national benefactor, of a man who had lived for God and man wholly and devotedly from his birth, was used as a football, made the subject of a court jest between the courtesan and the prince.
Oh that it had pleased God to give us the particulars of that interview when the disciples, burning, struggling under pressure of that cruel indignity, came and told Jesus! Can we imagine with what burning words John told of the scorn, the contempt, the barbarity with which the greatest man of his time had been hurried to a bloody grave? Were there not doubts – wonderings? Why did God permit it? Why was not a miracle wrought, if need were, to save him? And what did Jesus say to them? Oh that we knew! We would lay it up in our hearts, to be used when in our lesser sphere we see things going in the course of this world as if God were not heeding. Of one thing we may be sure. Jesus made them quiet; he calmed and rested them.
And all that Jesus taught, he was. This life of sweet repose, of unruffled peace, of loving rest in an ever-present Father, he carried with him as he went, everywhere warming, melting, cheering; inspiring joy in the sorrowful and hope in the despairing; giving peace to the perplexed; and, last and best of all, in his last hours, when he sought to cheer his sorrowful disciples in view of his death and one of them said, "Lord, show us the Father and it will suffice," he answered, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The Invisible Jehovah, the vast, strange, mysterious Will that moves all worlds and controls all destinies, reveals himself to us in the Man Jesus – the Christ.
We are told of an Old Testament prophet that sought to approach God. First there was a mighty tempest; but the Lord was not in the tempest. There was a devouring fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. There was an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there came at last a "still, small voice: " and when the prophet heard that he wrapped his face in his mantle and bowed himself to the earth.
The tempest, the earthquake, the fire, are the Unknown God of Nature; the still, small voice is that of Jesus!
It is to this Teacher so lovable, this Guide so patient and so gracious, that our Heavenly Father has committed the care and guidance of us through this dark, uncertain life of ours. He came to love us, to teach us, to save us; and not merely to save us, but to save us in the kindest and gentlest way. He gives himself wholly to us, for all that he can be to us, and in return asks us to give ourselves wholly to him. Shall we not do it?
XVII
THE TOLERANCE OF JESUS
"We saw one casting out devils, and he followed not us; and we forbade him. And Jesus said, Forbid him not."
There is nothing in which our Lord so far exceeds all his followers as in that spirit of forbearance and tolerance which he showed toward every effort, however imperfect, which was dictated by a sincere spirit. Human virtue as it grows intense is liable to grow narrow and stringent; but divine love has an infinite wideness of allowance.
We are told of the first triumphant zeal of the twelve Apostles when, endued with miraculous power, they went forth healing the sick, casting out devils, and preaching the good news of the kingdom to the poor. They came back to Jesus exulting in their new success, and we are told they said unto him, "Lord, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followed not us."
Jesus said unto them, "Forbid him not, for there is no man that will do a miracle in my name that will lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our side."
Here our Lord recognizes the principle that those who seek what he is seeking, and are striving to do what he is doing, are in fact on his side, even although they may not see their way clear to follow the banner of his commissioned Apostles and work in their company. Christ's mission as he defined it was a mission of healing and saving, a mission of consolation and the relief of human misery; and this man who was trying to cast out the devils in his name was doing his work and moving in his line, although not among his professed disciples.
Jesus always recognized the many "sheep not of this fold" which he had in this world – people who were his followers by unity of intention with what he intended, though they might never have known him personally. He tells the Jews, who believed in a narrow and peculiar church, that "many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven," and in his pictures of the last Judgment he makes the final award turn on the simple unity of spirit and purpose with Him in his great work of mercy for mankind.
We see intimated that the accepted ones are amazed to find themselves recognized as having shown personal regard to Christ, and say, "Lord, when saw we thee hungry or athirst or in prison and ministered to thee?" And the reply is, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." A more solemn declaration cannot be given, that our Lord accepts the spirit which is in unison with his great work of mercy for mankind, as the best offering of love to himself; and in this sense it is true that no man who would seek to do miracles of mercy in His spirit could lightly speak evil of him.
In this case our Lord might have seen that the arrogant, dictatorial temper which had come upon his followers in the flush of their first success might have disgusted and repelled a sincere man who was really trying to help on the good work in which Christ was engaged; and perhaps he may now see, as he looks down among our churches here and there, some good man in his own peculiar way seeking to do the work of the Lord, yet repelled from following in the train of his professed disciples. Instead of forbidding such "because they follow not us," he would have us draw them towards us by sympathy in the good they are doing, trusting in our Lord to enlighten them wherever they may need more distinct light.
The Protestant must not forbid the Romanist mission whose plain object seems to be to call sinners to repentance, and to lead professing Christians to a higher and holier life; nor must the Romanist in the pride of ancient authority forbid the Protestant evangelist that is seeking to make known the love of Jesus. And there are men in our times, of pure natures and of real love for mankind, whose faith in divine revelation is shaken, who no longer dare to say they believe with the "orthodox," but who yet are faithfully striving to do good to man, to heal the sick and cast out the devils that afflict society. Sad-hearted men are they often, working without the cheer that inspires the undoubting believer, often under a sense of the ban of the professed followers of Christ; yet the infinite tolerance of our Lord is leading them as well as those who more formally bear his name.
It was Cyrus, the Persian king, who worshiped the Zoroastrian gods, that is called in the prophecy "God's shepherd;" to whom God says, "Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, I girded thee, though thou hast not known me."
Let us hope that there are many whose right hand Christ is holding, though they as yet know him not; for He it is who says: —
"I will bring the blind by a way they know not. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these things will I do unto them and not forsake them."
It pleased our Lord to number among the twelve Apostles one of those natures which are constitutionally cautious and skeptical. Thomas had a doubting head but a loving heart; he clung to Christ by affinity of spirit and personal love, with a slow and doubting intellect. Whether Jesus were the Messiah, the King of Israel, destined to reign and conquer, Thomas, though sometimes hoping, was somewhat prone to doubt. He was all the while foreboding that Christ would be vanquished, while yet determined to stand by him to the last. When Christ announced his purpose to go again into Judæa, where his life had been threatened, Thomas says, – and there seems to be a despairing sigh in the very words, – "Let us also go, that we may die with him." The words seemed to say, "this man may be mistaken, after all; but, living or dying, I must love him, and if he dies, I die too."
Well, the true-hearted doubter lived to see his Lord die, and he it was, of all the disciples, who refused to believe the glad news of the resurrection. No messenger, no testimony, nothing that anybody else had seen could convince him. He must put his own hand into the print of the nails or he will not believe. The gracious Master did not refuse the test. "Reach hither thy finger and behold my hand, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing," he said, and the doubter fell at his feet and cried, "My Lord and my God!"
There was but a gentle word of reproof: "Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." It is this divine wideness of spirit, this tolerance of love, that is the most characteristic element in the stages which mark the higher Christian life. Such spirits as Fénelon, Francis de Sales, John Woolman, and the apostle Eliot, seem to have risen to the calm regions of clear-sighted love. Hence the maxim of Fénelon: "Only perfection can tolerate the imperfect." But we, in our way to those regions, must lay down our harsh judgments of others; we must widen our charity; and, as we bless our good Shepherd for his patience with our wanderings and failures, must learn to have patience with those of our neighbors.
