Bible Commentaries

Christ's Sustenance Accounted for

Luke 8:18). In Jesus Christ's sermons there is always a line of exhortation. We ought to notice more and more that without exhortation a sermon is not complete, and is little worth. The preacher must come down upon the hearer with all the power he can command of appeal, persuasion, entreaty; he should beseech men to be reconciled to God. Here, again, is a key. "Never man spake like this man!" He begins by pronouncing a number of beatitudes, and we listen with delight to his mellifluous voice; his lips were formed for eloquence, his eye was set in his head for illumination, for it assists the tongue to make his meaning plain: but presently we are awakened out of this intellectual reverie, and are withdrawn from this spiritual luxury, by an exhortation sharp as a crack of thunder, and we are called to be, to do, to stand, to go, to die! How many of us leave Christ at the point of exhortation! In exposition we like to hear him, because then we can partly contradict him, and contend our own opinion after he is exhausted as to speech; in poetry we love to listen to him, for the words know one another, and recognise their mutual kinship, and the whole speech flows like a deep and all but silent river; but when he comes to bid us follow him, take up our cross, deny ourselves, take heed, we begin to feel that he is imposing upon us discipline, and discipline is never acceptable to a nature that loves indulgence. But Christianity is discipline. Christianity is a commandment as well as a theology. Some can obey who cannot fully understand, and, alas, many have great understanding who never attempt to obey.

Not only did Jesus Christ teach positively, but he taught negatively. There was an occasion upon which he went into a ship with his disciples; and "he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep." Can he teach in sleep? He always teaches. Every look is a lesson; every word a condensed volume. How will Jesus Christ teach by falling asleep? He will teach by showing the disciples what they can do without him. This is the only way, if we may so put it, that Jesus Christ can awaken us to true self-consciousness. So long as we have the sun in the heavens we expect him to return; we treat him as in some sense a hired servant: he is looked for, and if he does not do his duty we complain of his neglect: but we cannot restore him to his place; we have no power over the clouds, and we must wait until the sun reappears. It is so with the Sun of Righteousness; Jesus Christ must withdraw from us to teach us of what value he has been. We do not know sometimes that a prophet has been amongst us until the prophet is dead. Then we feel a strange vacancy; we miss a personality, an influence, a presence, an effect, a blessing; then we ask questions, and then we discover that the King has passed by, and we failed to recognise his crown and sceptre. Jesus Christ might have lived with his disciples so long that they imagined they could do very well with him or without him; they had seen his method, they knew the lines which he traversed, and they could supply what was lacking if he himself was not present. Such was their infatuation upon some occasions that they attempted to work miracles when Jesus was not there, and they said to devils, Depart, and the devils mocked them with bitter laughter, and tore their subjects with still greater strength, and inflamed and excited them by still more appalling paroxysms. Then Jesus himself drew nigh and said, What is it? And the man most in question as a sympathiser said, I brought my son to thy disciples that they might heal him, and they cannot. Thus Jesus Christ teaches by withdrawment, by falling asleep, by simply standing aside, by becoming an onlooker, instead of an active worker. Thus he teaches. The withdrawment is not an arbitrary Acts , the sleep is not merely a natural necessity; out of these things must come lessons, showing how true it is that without Christ we can do nothing. Evil spirits utter their scorn at our incantations, and the waters pour their billows upon our little craft, heedless of our impotent cry. Do not let us have any Christianity without Christ, any mechanism that is not wrought from within by a dynamic agency, a spiritual inspiration; then every wheel will roll smoothly, and the whole machinery (which we are obliged to have for the execution of religious purposes) will move on, each part answering the other part as with intelligent obedience and co-operation. We may retain the altar without Christ, but there can be no sacrifice upon it; we may retain the Church, but it will be but a set of gilded walls, not a centre of power and a fountain of refreshment, if Jesus Christ himself be not in it.

Then see not only how he subsisted and how he taught, but how he healed. A man representing the uttermost distress had come under his attention, and Jesus had renewed the man, and the issue is thus stated—"Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind." These are the tests, and we cannot alter them; we cannot lower the standard; these alone, and standards equal to them, are the tests by which Christ's work in society must be judged. Let us judge ourselves by them. What was the man doing? He was "sitting at the feet of Jesus." Then he was subdued, chastened, refined, docile. Has the same miracle been wrought in us? sitting as a learner; not as an equal, not as a dictator, not as a critic, but sitting at the feet of Jesus to hear what the Master had to say, and to embody it in beautiful and generous life. "Sitting at the feet of Jesus." If I may but touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed; if I may sit at his feet it will be heaven enough for me; if I might but just feel his shadow passing over me I shall ask for no other benediction. Thus we begin. To what heights we may ascend none can tell; but Jesus Christ himself says that if we overcome, being faithful unto death, we shall sit with him on his throne. Meanwhile, it is enough to be led into the city like the blind Saul; in after years he will be blind again, but it will be in the third heaven. "Clothed," that is a common expression to us, but in this instance it was a most uncommon circumstance. The man who had been healed had not been clothed a long time—"A certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs," is the description we read of him in the27th verse. Now he is renewed in habit, civilised, part of a commonalty; no longer a rude solitary man, but tesselated socially, related civically, and now part of organised society.

Sometimes little things show what has been wrought in a man,—sitting in a new place, sitting in a new attitude, sitting in the house of God reverently; not looking at other people and wondering what they are doing, but looking to the centre with an eye that cannot be diverted. For some men to sit still is a miracle; for some poor light heads to listen betokens that God has been at work with them; such their natural frivolity that they cannot maintain an attitude of reverence and dignity in the house of God, and when you see them in such attitude then know that Omnipotence has not failed. "And in his right mind": the clouds all gone, the trance broken, the madness subsided, ruled like an angry sea that has been tranquillised by a divine fiat; now looking squarely at men, the eye no longer unsteady, fiery, wandering, but fixed and calm as a planet. These are the standards by which we must judge. Are we sitting at Christ's feet? Have all our habits been changed, and are we in our right mind—humble, modest, self-distrustful, dependent upon God every moment, saying to him, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: do not leave me for a single instant to myself, or I shall commit suicide, and go to hell"? These are the tests; not our little power of criticising one another, and distinguishing between Christian sects and denominations, and playing the artificial theologian, and talking unintelligible metaphysics; but these practical standards—seated as scholars at the great Teacher's feet, part of the great society and brotherhood of man, with a steady, calm, aspiring mind that has realised its dignity, and is endeavouring to discharge its obligations.

How many ways there are all leading to Christ! Here are the women who have been healed doing something for him according to their resources and their opportunities; here are others coming in through the gate of parable, having had the kingdom of heaven revealed to them by signs and by things which are being done in common life, and by spiritual interpretations of the commonplaces of the day; and here are others being taught by feeling how nothing and less than nothing they are when Jesus Christ is not actively present—how they bungle over their work, how they begin at the wrong end, sow in the wrong field, reap nothing but darkness in the harvest-time, and at winter are left in desolation and poverty; and here are others who are healed from great extremities—drunkards, who had been given up as losses, turned into sober citizens; madmen, who never spoke but irrationally, subdued and chastened into a docile spirit; wanderers on the face of the earth set in their right places in society. Let us go to Christ in some way. It is not for any man to say, This is the only way by which you can come. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, yea, thousands of thousands, and men may go to God in twenty thousand different ways; and provided they wish to go to God with their whole love, they will realise their desire. "While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran." That is how God does towards us. Whilst we are yet a great way off, wrong in our thinking, mistaken in our intellectual conceptions, hesitating as to certain moral positions, poor and ignorant and weak, he sees us, and has compassion upon us, and runs toward us, lest another step should turn us backward, lest the foe should prevail were he himself to tarry too long. The question which each man has to ask himself is this, Can I get to the Son of God in any way? I cannot understand the preachers, the theologians, the churches, the literature religious, and therefore I feel that I am kept outside; but here is an opportunity given to me, because a preacher says, Come to Christ in some way—your own way—only insist upon seeing Christ Then perhaps some poor heart may say, I will go in this way—broken-hearted, contrite, desolate, ashamed; I will go at night, when everybody is asleep, and I will utter my first prayer when the house is quiet as a cemetery: I think I dare go in that way. Then—Go!