Quiet Talks on John's Gospel Part 19

We need to learn this simplified spelling a bit, then _all_ will become simplified, living, loving, witnessing, praying, winning, singing with joy over the results of our new spelling in the syllables of daily life.

Blessed Master, we would come to school to Thee to-day. Please let us start down in the spelling cla.s.s. And teach us, Thou Thyself teach us.

But the vine--let us make that the central picture on the wall, with the Master in the picture pointing to the vine. And under the picture the one word _abide_. Then the whole story is in easy shape to help, pictured before our eyes. Abide--that is _Jesus walking around in your shoes_, looking out through your eyes, touching in your hand, speaking through your lips and your presence. He is _free_ to; that's _your_ side of it. He's unhindered. He _does_ it; that's _His_ side of it.

Look up at the picture on the wall. The whole vine is in the fruit, is it not? The whole of the fruit is in the vine, is it not? That's abiding. The whole of Jesus will be in you as you go about your daily common task, singing. The whole of you is in Jesus as everything simple and great, is done _to please Him_, singing as you do it.

And just as between vine and fruit there are branch and blossom, pruning and careful handling, sun and shade, dew and rain, so there are _betweens_ here before full ripening of fruit comes. There's purifying, cleansing by blood, cleansing by a soft fire burning within, and pruning by the Gardener and by His human a.s.sistant, you, sharp, incisive, hurting pruning.

There's _feeding_,--the juice of the vine _flows_ in, and is _taken_ in; the divine word of the divine Master is meditated, the cud of it is chewed daily. There's _obedience_,--perfect rhythm of action between vine and branches. There's _prayer_, the intercourse of our spirits, His and ours, together, the drawing from Him all we need, and the letting Him use us in His interceding for His world. These are some of the _betweens_. Through these comes the ripening fruit.

And the outer crowd comes eagerly for the fruit hanging over the fence within easy reach. There's a warm sympathy with one's fellows; only the thing's more than the words sound. The Jesus-spirit within will be felt by those outside, something warm and gentle and helpful. There will be things done, many things, earnestly thoughtfully done. The proper word is service. But the thing's so much more than the word ever seems to mean.

And there'll be yet more, a more of a surprising sort. The cla.s.sical fox called the grapes sour because he _couldn't_ reach them. There'll be some outside sour talk because some of the crowd _won't_ reach the fruit. It wouldn't agree with them the way they insist on living. The Jesus-life abiding within and flowing freely out is a protest against the opposite. The mere presence of a _Christ-abiding_ man convicts people of the sin of their lives and their treatment of Jesus. It convinces them that the absent Jesus is right, and so they are wrong.

So there's trouble out in the crowd just because of the ripe good fruit hanging in plain sight and easy reach over the vineyard fence. And that double result goes on getting more so, some coming to the vine drawn by the fruit, some talking against fruit and vine. But the man abiding is of good cheer. He sings. For the outcome is a.s.sured.

So every grape-vine, in garden, by roadway, or on hillside, with its vine-stock, branches, blossom, and fruit, tells of the Father's ideal for men, a unity of life with Himself, and with each other. And every bunch of grapes hanging on one stem, with its many in one, tells of that same ideal, the concord of love with the Father and with each other.

And that unity of love dominating all is irresistible to the outer crowd, in the winsomeness of its wooing.

V

The Greatest Wooing

_A Night and a Day With Hardening Hearts: the Story of Tender Pa.s.sion and of a Terrible Tragedy_

"Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: 'And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard?

_Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me_!

Strange, piteous, futile, thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said) 'And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ign.o.ble thee, Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake Fancied as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and Come.'"

--"_The Hound of Heaven_

"I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness."--_Hosea ii. 19, 20._

"Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll.

While the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, 'Til the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last."

--_Charles Wesley_.

V

The Greatest Wooing

(John xviii.-xix.)

Wider Wooing.

At the top of the mountain is the peak. The peak is the range at its highest reach. The peak grows out of the range and rests upon it and upon the earth under all. The whole of the long mountain range and of the earth lies under the peak. The peak tells the story of the whole range. At the last the highest and utmost. All the rest is for this capstone.

The great thing in Jesus' life is His death. The death crowns the life.

The whole of the life lies under and comes to its full in the death. The highest point is touched when death is allowed to lay Him lowest. It was the life that died that gives the distinctive meaning to the death. Let us take off hat and shoes as we come to this peak event.

There's a change in John's story here. The evening has gone, the quiet evening of communion. The night has set in, the dark night of hate. The intimacies of love give place to the intrigues of hate. The joy of communion is quickly followed by the jostling of the crowd. Out of the secret place of prayer into the hurly-burly of pa.s.sion. And the Master's rarely sensitive spirit feels the change. Yet with quiet resolution He steps out to face it. This is part of _the hour_, part of His great task, the greatest part.

For the holy task of wooing is not changed. It still is wooing, but there's a difference now. There's a shifting. The wooing goes from closer to wider, from the disciples to the outer crowd, from the direct wooing of the national leaders by personal plea to the indirect by action, tremendously personal action.

It moves out into a yet wider sweep. It goes from the wooing of a nation to the wooing of a race, from Jew distinctively to Roman representatively, from Annas standing in G.o.d's flood light rejected to Pilate in nature's lesser light obscured, from G.o.d's truant messenger nation to the world's mighty ruling nation.

In the epochal event just at hand Jesus begins His great wooing of a race. And that wooing has gone on ever since, wherever He has been able to get through the human channels to the crowd. He was lifted up and at once men began coming a-running broken in heart by the sight. He is being lifted up, and men of all the race are coming as fast as the slow news gets to them.

But back now to John's story. They pick their way over the stones of the little Kidron into the garden of the olives. There, quite alone in the deep shadows of the inner trees, Jesus has His great spirit-conflict, and great victory. The touch with sin so close, so real, now upon Him within a few hours, the sin of others upon His sinless soul,--this shakes Him terrifically beyond our understanding, who don't know purity as He did. But the tremendous strength of yielding brings victory, as ever. And the battle of the morrow is fought in spirit, and won.

Now the trailers of hate come seeking with torch and lantern, soldiers and officers, chief priests and rulers, the ever present rabble, and in the lead the shameless traitor. They are pushing their quest now, seeking Jesus in the hiding whence He had gone days before[122] led by the man who knew His accustomed haunts.

But there's no need for seeking now. Jesus is full ready. He decides the action that follows. He is masterful even in His purposeful yielding.

Quietly He walks out from the cover of the trees to meet them. And as their torches turn full upon His advancing figure again that marvellous power not only of restraint but decidedly more is felt by them. And the whole company, traitor, soldiers, rulers, rabble, overpowered in spirit, fall back and then drop to the ground utterly overawed and cowed by the lone man they are seeking.

Does Judas expect this? Will this power they are unable to resist not open the eyes of these rulers! But there's no stupidity equal to that which goes with stubbornness. In a moment Jesus reveals His purpose in this, to shield His disciples. Now the power of restraint is withdrawn and He yields to their desires. They shall have fullest sway in using their freedom of action as they will. And Peter's foolish attempts are quietly overruled.

They keep up the forms by taking Jesus to Annas the real Jewish ruler of the nation. But it is simply an opportunity for the coa.r.s.eness of their hate to vent itself upon His person. They pretend an examination here in the night's darkness suited to their deeds. He quietly reminds them of the frank openness of all His teachings.

Meanwhile John's friendly act has gotten Peter entrance. The att.i.tude of the two men is in sharpest contrast. John is avowedly Jesus' friend, regardless of personal danger. Peter just the reverse. And the hate of the leaders has soaked into all their surroundings even down to the housemaids. And John notes how exactly Jesus foreknew all, even to a thrice-spoken denial before the second crowing of a c.o.c.k.

Now comes the great Pilate phase. It was the intense malignity of their hate that made them bother with Pilate. They could easily have killed Jesus and Pilate would never have concerned himself about it. But they couldn't have put Him to such exquisite suffering and such shameful indignity before the crowds as by the Roman form of death by crucifixion.

Clearly there is a hate at work _behind_ theirs. Their hate is distinctly _inhuman_. Is _all_ hate? There's an unseen personal power in action here set on spilling out the utmost that malignant hate can upon the person of Jesus. But these men are cheerful tools. Hate is tying its hardest knot with ugliest black thread on the end of its opportunity.

This is Pilate's opportunity and he seems to sense it. And a struggle begins between conscience and cowardice, between right action with an ugly fight for it, and yielding to wrong with an easy time of it.

Clearly he feels the purity and the personal power of this unusual prisoner. The motive of envy and hate under their action is as plain to his trained eyes.