Part 13 (1/2)

would have been to deceive them, unless He showed them what the Christ was, unless He made them understand that He was in nearly all respects unlike the Christ they had imagined for themselves. 'May we not then, after His example, avoid direct answers? May we not use expressions which people call ambiguous?' Yes, if the answers we give are more perilous to ourselves than those we avoid, as His were; if the expressions that are _called_ ambiguous bring the hearers more face to face with facts, than those which are called straight. This is our Lord's example. Let all who dare follow it.

'_Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one._'

He had told them that He had come from the Father; He had testified by acts what His Father was. He had shown them that the Father was working for them on common days and Sabbath-days to bless them. This act had begotten no faith in them; would the words, '_I am the Christ_,' beget faith in them? Neither words nor acts, so long as they were not seeking as sheep for the true Shepherd. He had said to them before, that instead of looking for a shepherd who should point the way to them and the humblest Israelite,--who should fold them together,--they were aspiring to be independent shepherds; they were refusing to enter by the same door as the sheep. Those who were sheep,--those who needed a shepherd,--would own His voice. They did not want Him to tell them that He was the Christ. A sure and divine instinct would tell them, that He who gave up Himself, He who entered into their death, must be the guide they were created to follow,--that there could be no other. And He would justify their confidence. They were longing for life,--for the life of spirits,--for the life of G.o.d; nothing less would satisfy them. He would give them that life,--that eternal life of love, in which He had dwelt with the Father. They were surrounded by enemies who were seeking to rob them of life, to draw them into death. He was stronger than these enemies. They should not perish; neither man nor devil should take them out of His hands. The eternal will which He came to fulfil was on their side. _The Father who gave them to Him was greater than all._ Those who were seeking to separate them from their Lord and Shepherd were at war with this Father; for He had owned them, they were His.

To this mighty declaration all His discourse concerning the sheep and the shepherd has been tending; but at the ground of it lies a mightier still: '_I and my Father are one_.' All that He has been teaching is without foundation, if it has not this foundation. The unity of the Father and the Son is the only ground of the unity between the shepherd and the sheep; undermine one, and you undermine both. And when I say this, I mean you undermine all unity among men, all the order and principles of human society. For if these do not rest upon certain temporary conventions; if they have not been devised to facilitate the exchange of commodities, and the operations of the money market; if there is not a lie at the root of all fellows.h.i.+p and all government, which will be detected one day, and which popular rage or the swords of armed men will cut in pieces;--we must recognise, at last, the spiritual const.i.tution of men in one Head and Shepherd, who rules those wills which every other power has failed and shall fail to rule. We must recognise it. The existence of a Christendom either means _this_,--either affirms that such a const.i.tution is, and that national unity and family unity imply it, and depend upon it;--or it means nothing, and will dissolve into a collection of sects and parties, which will become so intolerable to men, and so hateful to G.o.d, that He will sweep them from His earth. Do you think sects would last now for an hour, if there was not in the heart of each of them a witness for a fellows.h.i.+p, which combinations and s.h.i.+bboleths did not create, and which, thanks be to G.o.d, they cannot destroy? The true Shepherd makes His voice to be heard, through all the noise and clatter of earthly shepherds; the sheep hear that voice, and know that it is calling them to follow Him into a common fold where all may rest and dwell together. And when once they understand that still deeper message which He is uttering here, and which the old creeds of Christendom are repeating to us, '_I and my Father are one_;' whenever they understand that the unity of the Church and the unity of mankind depends on this eternal distinction and unity in G.o.d Himself, and not upon the authority or decrees of any mortal pastor, the sects will crumble to pieces, and there will be, in very deed, '_one flock and one Shepherd_.'

But, that we may enter thoroughly and deeply into the meaning of these words, we should meditate earnestly upon those which followed them, those especially in which our Lord justified what the Jews declared to be blasphemy. '_Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself G.o.d. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are G.o.ds? If he called them G.o.ds, unto whom the word of G.o.d came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of G.o.d? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in Him._'

We are eager to quote these words of Jesus, as a proof that He is G.o.d.

I fear that, very often, we only mean, _that He took to Himself the name of G.o.d_. We a.s.sociate with that name a certain idea of power and absoluteness; we believe that He vindicated that power and absoluteness to Himself. No, brethren. He came--if we may believe His own words--to show us what G.o.d is; to deliver us from our crude, earthly, dark notions of Him; to prevent us from identifying His nature with mere power and sovereignty, as the heathens did, as the Jews in that day were doing. He came to show us the Father. Instead, therefore, of eagerly grasping at the divine name, and appropriating it to Himself, the method which He takes of proving His unity with the Father is, to humble Himself, to identify Himself with men, to refuse to be separate from them. 'You charge me with calling myself G.o.d.

”_But did not he call them G.o.ds, to whom the word of G.o.d came?_”' We are startled at the defence. We ask ourselves whether He was not abandoning the very claim which He had put forward; whether He was not allowing others to share the incommunicable glory with Him? No! but He was showing that a dignity and a glory had been put upon men by the word of G.o.d itself, which proved that there must be a Son of Man who was indeed the Son of G.o.d.

It was not only heathen sages who had spoken of man's divine faculties, divine origin, divine destiny. The Scriptures had called those whom G.o.d had set over men, G.o.ds. Psalmists, who were most jealous for the honour of Jehovah, had not feared to use the language.

Prophets could not maintain the truth of their own mission--could not declare that the word of G.o.d was speaking by them and in them--without falling into it. There _was_ the greatest peril of men becoming Lucifers,--of their setting themselves up in the place of G.o.d. It is the very danger of which Christ has been speaking in this discourse,--the temptation into which kings, prophets, priests,--even teachers who pretended to no inspiration, who merely stood on the ground of their traditional greatness, or of men's preference for them,--had fallen. Nor was there any deliverance from such pretensions, and from the robberies and murders which were the consequence of them, unless One came who did not exalt Himself, who did the works of His Father, who simply glorified Him. Such a One could justify all the high words that had ever been spoken of our race, and yet could lay low the pride of those who had aspired to be the lords of it. He could show what the true man is; and, in doing so, could show what the true G.o.d is. By putting Himself into the position of the lowest of the sheep, by enduring the death to which each one of the sheep had been subjected, He could prove that the glory of man is to serve; He could show that the true sons of G.o.d had been the true servants of men; He could show that the perfect servant of all must be _the_ Son of G.o.d. All t.i.tles, honours, dignities among men, had derived their virtue and efficacy from Him. Their virtue and efficacy lay in His Sons.h.i.+p. He was content to be a Son, to be nothing else than a Son. So He showed forth His eternal consubstantial union with the Father. If G.o.d is merely absolute Power, then all this Christian theology is a dream and a falsehood,--then there is no Son of G.o.d or Son of Man, in any real sense of the words. But if G.o.d is absolute Love, then He who died for the sheep must be His perfect image and likeness, the '_only-begotten, full of grace and truth_;' then to separate Him from the Father, to seek for the Father in any but Him, must lead to the denial of both, ultimately to the glorification of an evil spirit, a being of absolute selfishness, in place of both. From which frightful consummation, brethren, may the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the one G.o.d, whose name is Love, preserve us and His whole Church!

DISCOURSE XX.

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.

[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Trinity, June 15th, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XI. 25.

_Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live._

The words, '_I and my Father are one_;' '_The Father is in me and I in Him_,' which were spoken in the porch of the Temple at the feast of Dedication, had the same effect as the words, '_Before Abraham was, I am_,' which were spoken after the feast of Tabernacles. In both cases the Jews sought to take Jesus that they might stone Him; in both Jesus escaped out of their hands. On the last occasion we are told whither He retired: '_He went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized, and there He abode_.' The disciples who had been with Him in the crowd of the city found themselves in the lonely place where they had first heard Him proclaimed as the Lamb of G.o.d.

Since that time there had been a whirl of new thoughts and strange hopes in their minds. The kingdom of G.o.d had appeared to be indeed at hand; they had seen their Master exercising the powers of it; they had exercised those powers themselves. Some day His throne would be established; they should sit beside Him. The vision had pa.s.sed away; they were the companions of a fugitive; they were in the desert where they had first learned, not that they were princes to sit and judge, but sinners wanting a Deliverer.

I cannot doubt that He who was educating them, not only by His speech but by all His acts, had devised this lesson for them, that it was just what they needed at that time. How often do we all need just such a discipline; the return to some old haunt that some past experience has hallowed; the return to that experience which we seem to have left far behind us, that we may compare it with what we have gone through since! How good it would be for us if when circ.u.mstances take us back to the past, we believed that the Son of Man had ordered those circ.u.mstances, and was Himself with us to draw the blessing out of them!

Others beside the disciples were profiting, the Evangelist tells us, by this choice of a place. '_And many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this Man were true._' They had perhaps contrasted John the preacher in the wilderness, with Jesus who ate with publicans and sinners; John, who said, Repent, with Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind. Now they were reminded of the likeness between them. Jesus drew them away from earthly things, as John had done. Jesus made them conscious of a light s.h.i.+ning into them, as John had done. Only what John had said was true.

They needed a baptism of the Spirit, that the baptism for the remission of sins might not be in vain. They needed a Lamb of G.o.d and a Son of G.o.d, who should do for them what no miracles could do. Was He not here? '_And many believed on Him there._'

I can conceive no diviner introduction than this to the story of the raising of Lazarus. It prepares us to understand that what we are about to hear of, is not one of those signs which Jesus rebuked His countrymen as sinful and adulterous for desiring; not one of those wonders which draw men away from the invisible to the visible,--from the object of faith to an object of sight; but just the reverse of this,--a witness that what _John spake of Jesus was true_,--a witness that in Him was Life, and that this Life always had been, was then, and always would be, the Life as well as the Light of men. With what care the story is related so that it shall leave this impression on our minds--how all those incidents contribute to it which would have been pa.s.sed over by a reporter of miracles, nay, which would have been rejected by him as commonplace, and therefore as interfering with his object--I shall hope to point out as we proceed. And I would thankfully acknowledge at the outset, that, on the whole, the mind of Christendom has responded to the intention of the divine narrator; that whatever scholars and divines may have made of the story, the people have apprehended its human and domestic characteristics, and have refused to be cheated of its application to themselves under the pretext that it would serve better as an evidence for Christianity if its meaning were limited to one age. I am still more thankful that the Church, by adopting the words of my text into her Burial Service, has sanctified this rebellion. An attempt, therefore, to discover the exact meaning of the Evangelist will not introduce novelties, but will deepen old faith. And I cannot help feeling that unless we do seek to deepen that faith, unless we are willing to learn again from St. John some of the lessons which we may think we know very perfectly, or have left behind us in our nurseries, we shall find that we have less of belief than many Jews and many heathens had before our Lord came in the flesh.

'_Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)_' The story of Mary and the alabaster box of ointment has not yet been told by our Evangelist. But he had too distinct and high an object to care for preserving the conventional proprieties of a narrator. He never pretended to be giving those who read him their first information about the events that happened while our Lord was upon earth. Their memories, he knew, were stored with these events.

What they wanted was to see further into the meaning of them; to see how they exhibited the life of the Son of Man and the Son of G.o.d. He will tell us afterwards what is the context and significance of Mary's act. Here he a.s.sumes that it was known at Ephesus,--as it was to be known wherever the Gospel was preached,--and he uses it to identify Lazarus. But how could Lazarus need to be identified? Must not his name and his fame have been spread as widely as his sister's? Was any other more likely to be preserved in the first century, by tradition, if not by record? The answer is contained in the narrative. Lazarus, as a man who had been in a grave and had come forth out of it, might be spoken of then as he is spoken of now. A glorious halo might surround him. It would be shocking to connect him with ordinary feelings and interests. A like halo would encircle her head who had anointed the Lord's body for the burial. Men would refuse to look upon her as one of the common children of earth. It was just this which John dared to do, which it was essential to his purpose that he should do. He would have us know that Mary dwelt in the little town of Bethany; that she had a sister Martha; that Lazarus was her brother.

The story is stripped of its fantastical ornaments. The hero and heroine have pa.s.sed into the brother and sister. If they have to do with an unseen world, it is not with a world of dreams, but of realities; not with a heaven that scorns the earth, but with a heaven that has entered into fellows.h.i.+p with earth.

'_Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick._' The man who was healed at the Pool of Bethesda, the blind man who was sent to wash in the Pool of Siloam, were merely suffering Jews; the bread at Capernaum was given to five thousand men gathered indiscriminately; the n.o.bleman of Capernaum seems to have heard for the first time of Jesus; the guests at the marriage-feast may have been His neighbours, or even His kinsmen, but we are not told that they were. This message is the first which directly appeals to the private affection of the Son of Man, which calls Him to help a friend because he is a friend. The words which follow of our Lord and of His Apostle are worthy of all study in reference to this point.

'_When Jesus heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of G.o.d, that the Son of G.o.d might be glorified thereby.

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was._' He had a work to do. This was the first thought of all. The sickness was to glorify G.o.d, just as the blindness of the man to whom He restored sight was to glorify G.o.d. The Son of G.o.d who had been revealed as the Light of the world, was to be revealed as the Restorer of life. Death was not to be conqueror here, any more than darkness there. All other thoughts must give way to this. Yet '_Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus_.' The individual sympathy was not crushed by the universal, but grew and expanded in the light and warmth of it. He did respond to the message in His inmost heart.

The love which it a.s.sumed to be there--the love for that particular man--was there. And in spite of it, yea, because of it, He continued in the desert, and made no sign of moving towards Bethany. These sentences enable us to enter into the Divine humanity of Jesus, as a thousand prelections and discourses would not enable us to enter into it. They do not present to us first the Divine side of His life, and then the human, as if they were opposing aspects of the same Being.

They make us feel that the one is the only medium through which we can behold the other.