Bible Commentaries

Dramatised Truth

Jeremiah 19:1). We do not like dramatised truth, and therefore there are large portions of the Bible which we do not admire. We admire those portions sentimentally, but not practically; we look upon them as upon pictures of long ago, never intended for reproduction or imitation. Were a man to dramatise the truth now, he would be reported as an eccentricity. Jesus Christ dramatised it in parables; Jeremiah and Ezekiel dramatised it in various ways: we like this dramatisation to be confined to the Bible, as we like the Commandments also to be confined to the same limit; we never like to see any of them loose, and doing active work in the Church. In this way we allow the Bible to become old, an archaic treasure, a very valuable curiosity. We have seen in the previous chapter what the potter could do with the vessel. Let us make no mistake about that vessel, for it was then in wet clay, and so long as a vessel is in wet clay the potter can do with it what he pleases; but once let it pass the oven, and there is no potter on earth can do anything with it. It is most desirable and essential that we should have right ideas about the potter and the clay, for that image, by being mistaken in its purpose and scope, has wrought infinite mischief in the Church. There is a point up to which the potter can do what he pleases with the clay: he can make the vessel high or low, broad or narrow, shapely or ungainly; he can play with the wet clay. There was a time when the Lord could do this with man; when he took the dust out of the ground and shaped it, and prepared it for the reception of inspiration, he could have broken it, or Jeremiah 20:1-2). The word "smote" is grammatically peculiar. Within the grammar of it is held the meaning that the blow was struck with the priest's own hand. It was not a stroke delivered by another. So excited did Pashur the son of Immer the priest become, that he lifted up his hand and smote the prophet who had thus denounced the sin of the nation. Did Jeremiah retire dismayed? We find the answer from Jeremiah 20:3 to Jeremiah 20:6. Jeremiah was not overborne by this blow from the priest's hand; he said, "The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib:" there shall no longer be joy round about, but fear round about; and the worst kind of fear, "for thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Prophets must not accept a flesh wound as a period to their function, as an exhaustion of their prerogative; while the poor flesh smarts under the stinging blow the soul must rise to the occasion, and the smiter himself must be struck with. a deadlier hand than his own. Thus the prophet has a bad time: of it in the world. We pray that a prophet may arise. Yet who dare say Amen? He would have a hard time of it! We need him much. The Lord hath forsaken me utterly if at this moment the Church does not in all her departments and communions need a prophet, a terrible man, a man of iron lips, a man of throat of brass, a man too strong for patronage, yet weak in the presence of all tenderness, necessity, and helplessness. Let him come, O living God, with his potter's earthen vessel, and break it before us. Yet how dare we ask thee to send that man? We should ill-use him. Yet we need him very much.

Prayer

Almighty God, who can answer all thy questions? Thou hast hedged us round about with mystery. Dost thou taunt us with thine inquiries that we may know how small we are? or dost thou seek to lure us to nobler subjects that we may cultivate the whole inheritance of our mind? Thou dost take us into faraway places and plunge us into immeasurable shades, and we hear thy questions and cannot answer them; when we think we know something, thou dost overwhelm and confound us with some new question; we are dazed and blinded and lost. We are glad of this, for things are larger than they look; every stone has a temple in it, every shadow veils its own little mystery; all things have voices, though we have not yet given them opportunity to pour upon our attention their sweet music. It is a great world, it is a wondrous life; sometimes we want the word Immortality to eke out our speech, for this is more than life, it is rapture, it is agony, it is joy supreme, it is a quivering weakness that indicates inexhaustible strength. We bless thee for all these contradictions and mysteries, these crosslights and vexing shadows; they humble us, and bring us to the right attitude, and call upon us to cry out unto the living God, What art thou, and where? and, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Is it always to be this living under the shadow of a stone wall? are we to be hemmed in always by this granite? We want the horizon, radiant and yielding, going back as we go forward to charm us into more solemn solitudes. Heighten all our thoughts, deliver us from all littleness, from all envy, bitterness, uncharitableness, and monotony, and lift us up into those high exercises of contemplation and homage that shall bring us back to the world more industrious and more earnest after the things of God. We are now following the call of Jesus: Greater things than these shall ye do, said He, when he pointed to all his miracles. The Spirit of God was promised by the Saviour of the world to abide with us. What can we do on one short visit? what can we see by one transient glance? We want a teacher to abide with us, and thus destroy all time by giving us to feel that we are lost in God's eternity. Pity us one and all, save us from our distresses, and when thy waves and thy billows come over us, may we not call them billows and waves, but thy billows and thy waves; then they shall be like summer dreams. Be in the house that everybody else has forsaken: charm the solitude that no human friendship breaks: help those who are heavy-laden to carry their burdens, and upon eyes that are weary with watching send some refreshing slumber. O Man of the Cross, Christ of Calvary, turn our prayers into great answers! Amen.