Part 10 (1/2)
He got from one place to another by the slow process of using His strength or joining it with nature or that of a beast. He entered a building through an opening as we do. Both of these are in sharp contrast with the conditions after the resurrection. His stock of knowledge came by the law of increase, the natural way; some, and then more, and the more gaining more yet.
But there's more than this. There's a bit of a pull inside as one thinks of this, as though Jesus in His _humanity_ after all is on a level above us, hardly alongside giving us a hand. Ah! there is more. He had fellows.h.i.+p with us in the limitation that sin has brought. He shared the experiences that men were actually having. He knew the bitterness of having one's life plan utterly broken and something else--a rude jagged something else--thrust in its place. But the bitterness of the experience never got into His spirit or affected His conduct. The emergency He found down here wrought by sin affected Him.
He was _hungry_ sometimes without food at hand to satisfy His hunger. He always showed a peculiar tender sympathy with hungry people. He couldn't bear the sight of the hungry crowds without food. He would go out of His way any time to feed a man. He makes the caring for hungry folks a test question for the judgment time. There's a great note of sympathy here with the race. Every night hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters go hungry to bed. It was said at one time that the death rate of London rises and falls with the price of bread. If true when said it probably is more intensely true to-day. Jesus ate the bread of the poor, the coa.r.s.est, plainest bread. But then, that may have been simply His good common sense.
Jesus got _tired_. Could there be a closer touch! He fell asleep on a pillow in the stern of the boat one day crossing the lake. And the sleep was like that of a very tired man, so sound that the wild storm did not wake Him up. It was His tiredness that made Him wait at Jacob's well while the disciples push on to the village to get food. He wouldn't have asked them to go if they were too tired, too. Was He ever _too_ tired--over-tired--like we get? I wonder. There was the temptation to be so ever tugging. Probably not, for He was wise, and had good self-control, _and_ then He trusted His Father. Yet He probably went to the full limit of what was wise. Certainly He lived a strenuous life those three and a half years.
Jesus knew _the pinch of poverty_. He was the eldest in a large family, with the father probably dead, and so likely was the chief breadwinner, earning for Himself and for the others a living by His trade. He was the village carpenter up in Nazareth, an obscure country village. I do not mean abject grinding poverty, of course. That cannot exist with frugality and honest toil. But the pinch of constant management, rigid economy, counting the coins carefully, studying to make both ends meet, and needing to stretch a bit to get them together. It is not unlikely that house rent was one of the items.
The ceaselessness of His labors those public years suggests habits of industry acquired during those long Nazareth years. He was used to working hard and being kept busy. It would seem that He had the care of His mother after the home was broken up. At the very end He makes provision for her.
John understands the allusion and takes her to his own home. He must have thought a great deal of John to trust His mother to his care. Could there be finer evidence of friends.h.i.+p than giving His friend John such a trust?
Jesus was _a homeless man_. Forced from the home village by His fellow townsmen, for those busy years he had no quiet home spot of His own to rest in. And He felt it. How He would have enjoyed a home of His own, with His mother in it with him! No more pathetic word comes from His lips than that touching His homelessness--foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath neither hole nor nest, burrowed or built, in ground or tree.
And Jesus knew the sharp discipline of _waiting_. He knew what it meant to be going a commonplace, humdrum, tread-mill round while the fires are burning within for something else. He knew, and forever cast a sweet soft halo over all such labor as men call drudgery, which never was such to Him because of the fine spirit breathed into it. Drudgery, commonplaceness is in the _spirit_, not the work. Nothing could be commonplace or humdrum when done by One with such an uncommon spirit.
<u>There's More of G.o.d Since Jesus Went Back.</u>
I have tried to think of Him coming into young manhood in that Nazareth home. He is twenty now, with a daily round something like this: up at dawn likely--He was ever an early riser--ch.o.r.es about the place, the cow, maybe, and the kindling and fuel for the day, helping to care for the younger children, then off down the narrow street, with a cheery word to pa.s.sers-by, to the little low-ceilinged carpenter shop, for--eight hours?--more likely ten or twelve. Then back in the twilight; ch.o.r.es again, the evening meal, helping the children of the home in difficulties that have arisen to fill their day's small horizon, a bit of quiet talk with His mother about family matters, maybe, then likely off to the hilltop to look out at the stars and talk with the Father; then back again, slipping quietly into the bedroom, sharing sleeping s.p.a.ce in the bed with a brother. And then the sweet rest of a laboring man until the gray dawn broke again.
And that not for one day, _every_ day, a year of days--_years_. He's twenty-five now, feeling the thews of his strength; twenty-seven, twenty-nine, still the old daily round. Did no temptation come those years to chafe a bit and fret and wonder and yearn after the great outside world? Who that knows such a life, and knows the tempter, thinks _he_ missed those years, and their subtle opportunity? Who that knows Jesus thinks that _He_ missed such an opportunity to hallow forever, fragantly hallow, home, with its unceasing round of detail, and to cus.h.i.+on, too, its every detail with a sweet strong spirit? Who thinks _He_ missed _that chance_ of fellows.h.i.+p with the great crowd of His race of brothers?
”In the shop of Nazareth Pungent cedar haunts the breath.
'Tis a low Eastern room, Windowless, touched with gloom.
Workman's bench and simple tools Line the walls. Chests and stools, Yoke of ox, and shaft of plow, Finished by the Carpenter Lie about the pavement now.
”In the room the Craftsman stands, Stands and reaches out His hands.
”Let the shadows veil His face If you must, and dimly trace His workman's tunic, girt with bands At His waist. But His _hands_-- Let the light play on them; Marks of toil lay on them.
Paint with pa.s.sion and with care Every old scar showing there Where a tool slipped and hurt; Show each callous; be alert For each deep line of toil.
Show the soil Of the pitch; and the strength Grip of helve gives at length.
”When night comes, and I turn From my shop where I earn Daily bread, let me see Those hard hands; know that He Shared my lot, every bit: Was a man, every whit.
”Could I fear such a hand Stretched toward me? Misunderstand Or mistrust? Doubt that He Meets me full in sympathy?
”Carpenter' hard like Thine Is this hand--this of mine; I reach out, gripping Thee, Son of Man, close to me, Close and fast, fearlessly.”[6]
To-day up yonder on the throne _there's a Man_--kin to us, bone of our bone, heart of our heart, toil of our toil. _He_--knows. If you'll listen very quietly, you'll hear His voice reaching clear down to you saying, with a softness that thrills, ”Steady--steady--_I_ know it all. I'm watching and _feeling_ and _helping_. Up yonder is the hill top and the glory sun and the wondrous air. Steady a bit. Stay up with _Me_ on the glory side of your cloud, though your feet scratch the clay.” Surely there's more of G.o.d since Jesus went back!
The Divine Jesus
<u>Jehovah--Jesus.</u>
Of all the men who knew Jesus intimately John stands first and highest. He misunderstood for a time. He failed to understand, as did the others. He did not approach the keen insight into Jesus' being and purpose that Mary of Bethany did. But, then, she was a woman. He was a man. Other things being equal (though they almost never are), woman has keener insight into the spirit and motives than has man. But John stood closer to Jesus than any other. Jesus drew him closer. And that speaks volumes for John's fineness of spirit. He alone of the inner twelve did not forsake in the hardest hour that Thursday night, but went in ”_with_ Jesus.” How grateful must Jesus have been for the presence of His sympathetic friend that black night, with its long intense shadows!