Bible Commentaries

Chapter75

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee for all special days and sacred memories: they come to stimulate and encourage us in all holy things. We have seen the blackness of one day, its great cross and all its appalling solemnity, and now we stand in the brightness of a cloudless sky, rejoicing that the Lord is not in the tomb, but that be is risen and is our Priest for evermore. We bless thee for seeing an open grave—the tomb has been the great mystery of our experience, and the great pain and wonder of our forecast of life. We knew not what it was, but thou hast opened it and delivered the captive and set him on high and crowned him with immortality and infinite glory, and they that are Christ's shall be brought with him at the last: thou wilt leave no grave unsearched, and thy jewels shall be gathered together. All thy buried ones shall awake and arise and come forth out of the dust, and them that sleep in Jesus thou wilt bring with him.

For all such hope we bless thee. This is a sure confidence and a source of exceeding strength. So now we can say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" It was but a moment's victory, to be overcome with everlasting conquest, for death is swallowed up and the grave for ever forgotten. Help us to believe these sacred truths, to treasure them in our hearts, to draw from them inspiration in the time of weakness and fear and desolation, so that we may have songs in the night time and know not the pain and loneliness of orphanage. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort us; thou holdest a great light over the valley of the shadow of death; thou dost deliver with mighty deliverances all who put their whole trust in thy power and wisdom. This is our joy, our Matthew 20:1-16

The Larger Justice

We cannot understand this parable by itself: it is the puzzle of all persons who come upon it without paying any attention to the circumstances which led up to it. You see from the grammatical construction of the first verse that this parable belongs to something else—"For the kingdom of heaven is like unto." We must therefore ask, What has given occasion to this method of presenting the kingdom of heaven? Peter had put a selfish question. Having heard Christ's speech about the rich man and his infinite difficulty in entering into the kingdom of God, Peter said to Jesus, "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?" He wanted his Christianity to pay, his eye was wandering in the direction of results, he wanted the quid pro quo. Now the parable was meant to show that the kingdom of heaven is not founded upon rules of barter: it is like unto a householder who proceeded upon a larger principle than had yet been tried, a principle which created antagonism at first, but which in the end vindicated itself.

Looking at this parable within its own limits, looking at it from a mere trade point of view, regarding it in the light of what we call political economy, it is absurd; it touches the sense of justice very sharply in every Matthew 20:17-34

The Flan of Life

He had told them this before: he had indeed nothing else to tell them. Whatever else he said belonged to this pathetic and sublime revelation, and was, as compared with it, but as the small dust of the balance. Look what a plan this is. Life is a plan—you will have trouble and grievous unrest and dreams that will plague you like enemies at night, if you do not seize the all-restful idea that life is not a game of chance, but a Divine plan. The very hairs of your head are all numbered: not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father. Your troubles are all reckoned, your tears are all numbered. The valleys that you would not have on the road were all excavated by the Divine hand. Every controversy, every cross wind, every cold steep climb up the barren rocks—all is included, fore-appointed, and is part of the Divine purpose. There hath no temptation befallen you but such as is common to man. With every temptation God will make a way of escape. Brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations, for every trial has its own purpose and its own sweet outcome. He knoweth the way that I take, and when he hath tried me he will bring me forth as gold. This verse has about it all the beauty and massiveness of an architectural fabric: it is not a heap of loose stones, it is a building with shape and polish and high utility. So is your life.

Why then this restlessness and feverishness and miserable dis content? All things work together for good to them that love God. Fear not, little flock: it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. "I am persuaded," said one who spoke soberly and inspiredly, "that he which hath begun a good work in you will carry it on until the day of redemption, completion, and perfectness." There are parts of the plan you do not like, but you must deal with the plan as an entirety, and do not suppose that the unfinished house is the complete building. By-and-by it will be finished, and then God will allow you to say what you think of his high meaning.

Observe this is a whole plan, it is not part of a design, it is not one little patch plucked out of the pattern—the whole thing is here. I found an argument upon that circumstance. Nothing happened to Christ that is not in this paragraph. What do you make of that? Remember the circumstances, recall and re-live the tragedy, and tell me what you say to this—that nothing occurred in any tittle of incident or throb of pain that is not in this paragraph. The going up, the betrayal, the condemnation, the mocking, scourging, crucifying, rising again—are all gone through before one cruel hand is laid upon him, or one mocker dares spit in that holy face. The man who can so deal with his future cannot be crucified, in any sense that will bring him into despair. He discounts the future; its tragedies come to him in a sense as commonplaces, its crosses are but punctuations of a literature which he himself has written, and perused, and approved as to its final outcome and significance. We are troubled because we have no great outlook: we take in no field of vision, our life comes into our house in little pieces, in mocking details, and not knowing what is going to come next, we fret ourselves with sore chafing. The one thing we need not know is the detail, the great thing we may know is the solemn wholeness.

Herein Jesus Christ endeavoured to strengthen the missionaries when he sent them out. We have seen in our examination of the great missionary charge, which he delivered in the tenth chapter of this gospel, that Jesus Christ spread all the future before his agents, told them of the mocking and the scourging and the delivering up to the Councils and banishment from the synagogues—ay, he made the winter of a grievous desolation howl with its bitter winds, before they took a step from the sanctuary of his own presence, and his own immediate protection. That is how to live.

Tell me how is this, that the whole thing is known to Jesus before it is done by the Jews and Gentiles? He was mocked and scourged and spat upon and crucified and reviled, within himself; so when it came to him, he received it with ineffable meekness and acquiescence in the Divine will. He was never surprised. He did not turn round and say, "What—this indignity never entered into my contemplation of the sad event: smitten upon the head with a reed, struck on the cheek-bone with a clenched hand, spat upon."—He never said, "This did not come within my view when I looked upon the scene that was coming." It was all reckoned, it was all expected, it was all borne with corresponding equanimity,—with the astounding peace which passeth understanding.

Surely he will walk now straight upon this great height, and have no more interruption. Such is not the case. In a moment he is pulled down from his elevation as we have seen him upon former occasions. "Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him." When have we ever seen the occasion kept up throughout his whole purpose and scheme in this life of Jesus Christ? Never. He had never climbed a mount of sublimity from which he is not brought down by some ruthless and mean hand. He was all but crucified in the nineteenth verse, and in the twentieth verse he is dragged down to answer a question of most selfish ambition. This action on the part of the mother of Zebedee's children shows what misconstructions of a Divine plan are possible. We suppose that such and such misconstructions of human purpose never can be conceived. Read the life of Jesus Christ in answer to that vain imagination. It is possible to misconstrue God, it is possible to suppose that God is capable of mean ideas and selfish arrangements in his kingdom. What wonder that you and I should be misunderstood? Is it amazing beyond all imagination that you and I should not be comprehended in our small circle, when we have before us the astounding fact that nearly every word of Jesus Christ's was taken hold of at the wrong end and turned to impious uses?

How was this woman revealed? She was revealed at the point of unreasonableness. We may have a thousand fantastic dreamings in our hearts, and a most vile self-consciousness, and no one need know anything about it, but the moment we become unreasonable we show what sin really is, in some of its practical relations and aspects. Men who could not understand sin in its abstract relation to God, as a spiritual offence, understand it and hate it the moment it assumes the attitude and exercises the prerogative of unreasonableness. We understand sin in some parts of its conjugation, not in its reality and essence.

The ten were moved with indignation when they heard of the kingdom being so divided. They were not moved with indignation until the point of unreasonableness was reached. We are shocked at points; we do not take the right grasp and scope, but we are shocked at detail. It is possible to be more offended by a discourtesy than by a crime.

What will Jesus Christ do now? He will lift up the occasion back to its grand level. He was never responsible for the lowering of the occasion. The moment he comes into it he lifts it up. In this instance he restored the occasion to its sublime level—hence he laid down the great law of meekness, self-crucifixion, and service in his kingdom. "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." That is the law of greatness in the Divine kingdom.

Observe that in both these instances Jesus Christ speaks of himself as a third person. Great is the mystery and great the graciousness of this Man. Of whom does he speak in the eighteenth verse—"The Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes?" Of whom does he speak in the twenty-eighth verse—"Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister?" Why does he not speak directly of himself as I? Do we not sometimes relieve our sorrows by this impersonality, by this enlargement of ourselves into representativeness, and do we not sometimes subdue what otherwise might be an ambition by speaking of ourselves as types of a divine class or purpose? He enlarges the occasion by this very use of the third person. Sometimes he said "I—Me" with a wondrous pathos, but he most frequently called himself the Son of Man when he spoke of his suffering and of his glory. He would make all occasions grand: he would never draw pity upon the mere son of the carpenter, he would never have himself, in the littleness of his actuality and personality, wept over and pitied as a mere atom. Whatever answer was made to his appeals must be made not to the local man, not to the Nazarene, not to the individual measurable by the vision that looked upon him, but to the Son of man,—a term yet to be understood. Jesus Christ projects these great phrases, and the ages have to live up to them—the kingdom of heaven, the Son of man, the Son of God—these are expressions which do not empty upon us their whole meaning at once: they are age-words, they spread themselves over the throbbing æons of all time, and have their ministry for generation after generation until the close comes.

We have spoken of murmuring men. We have just had before us two disappointed men. Now there come before us two rejoicing men. Let us hasten to the sunny side of the history, where the light falls warmly and there is room enough to be glad in. "Behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David." Again observe what has already attracted our attention. No man ever appealed to Jesus Christ for help of this kind in the name of justice. We cannot too strongly keep that fact before the mind; we have had it again and again in this history, and because it occurs again and again, the comment must be as frequent as the repetition of the incident. The blind men never said, "We have heard that thou didst cure a leper, therefore in the name of impartiality we charge thee to heal us of our blindness." Every suppliant came to Christ along the line of mercy. So it must be to the very end. That God has pardoned one sinner for Christ's sake is no reason why I should go to him and challenge him in the name of justice to be as impartial to me as to other men. There are circumstances in life in which we stand alone, in the solemnity of perfect individualism, every man carrying his own burden, every man stung by his own sin, every man burnt in a hell of his own, and out of the pit of his own particular distress he must vehemently call upon God in the sweet name of mercy.

Humanity asserts itself in these great cries; in pain, in want, in helplessness, in conscious desolation, the soul is lifted above mere technicality. Trust the soul in those high moods of con scious need, confronting the great Giver: when the soul speaks then, it speaks in perfect eloquence. Do not attempt to pray until you feel the need, or you will be mocked by your very supplica. tion, and your religion will be turned into scepticism and your simulating piety will become as sourness in the heart. Do not shut the eyes unless you really wish to see God, or the very darkness will become a burden upon your eyelids, and you will wonder that you should have undertaken a weariness so painful; but when consciously blind, halt, bruised, shattered, wounded, needy, and you hear that the Son of God passes by, then lift up the voice with great shouting, and vehemence and crying and tears, call for him, and you will know whether prayer is a device of the fancy, or a reality and a necessity of the life.

Perhaps the power of Jesus Christ is now exhausted, and therefore he did not give to the mother of Zebedee's children what she asked for. Now and again he did say "No" to men, but rarely. He would rather have said "Yes" a thousand times. Can he give any more? Let me read. "So Jesus had compassion." I may pause there, for I know the rest. Once let his compassion be touched and his omnipotence goes along with it. Had he no compassion on the mother of Zebedee's children? None. No appeal was made to pity or to love. The moment we read that Jesus had compassion, we may close the book, for we know the rest, down to its uttermost line and hue. "And he touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight and they followed him." It is well that this incident occurs immediately after the conversation with the mother of Zebedee's children. We wondered if the power had run out, we began to be surprised at this answer, as supposing that mayhap the almightiness, as we imagined it, had exhausted itself, and now he was making up by much reasoning what was lacking in sterling strength. It is not so. His "Yes" would not be so grand if he could not say "No." He is so complete to me that I follow him through his whole life, for here he says to a mother with her two children "No," and there he says to two blind men, "What do you want?" "Sight." "Then," said Jesus, "take it and see."

Now herein is the whole controversy about prayer settled, to my own satisfaction. I pray God to let me sit sometimes on the right hand and sometimes on the left of the majesty of heaven, and he says "No." Then I pray him to pity me and take me up and heal my sicknesses and supply that which is lacking, and I approach him. in the right spirit, humbly, self-renouncingly, hopefully, unable to see him because of the great hot tears that blind me, and yet sometimes seeing him the better for those waters of contrition. Then he says, "What wilt thou? Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. What wilt thou? and thou shalt have it even to the half of my kingdom—what wilt thou?" Then seizing the occasion I tell him what my real necessity is, and he who said "No" to my ambition, gives me to overflow when I plead my necessity and urge the plea of a burning pain. Ten thousand little prayers fall down upon the altar, from which they went feebly up, because they were inspired by ambition or vitiated and tainted by some selfish purpose, whereas other prayers that went up for pardon and pity, help, light, succour—when I asked him to sit up all night because of the affliction that is in the house, to open mine eyes because I could not see one step before me, and to lead on where the way was all bog—then he gave me great Amens which repronounced and answered the prayer of my aching heart.