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A PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE GOSPEL
HISTORY.
The four Gospels are
peerless even in the Book of books. The scenes which they depict have the
characteristics of the two opposite and rival schools of art in exquisite
combination: a pre-Raphaelite perfection of realistic detail, with a
lofty, unearthly Idealism of life and grandeur, which print these
histories indelibly on the memory, imagination, and heart. We read them
again, and again, and yet again, and never tire of them. Try this upon
any, the very best, history that ever was written by human pen. Head it
twice you may; thrice, not so likely; four or five times, hardly; but
more, never. The very best get flat, stale, and unprofitable; but these
matchless histories never do. Millions read them and re-read them, and
still they are as fresh as the first day, and ever more intelligently
relished. New wonders appear in them, and still new. The illustrious
father of the Church, Augustin, finely expresses this when he says,
"Scripture has its first draughts, its second draughts, its third
draughts." Biblical students comment upon them, and people read with
endless interest every sensible and savoury commentary on them; but the
Text itself rises ever above all, and keeps above. In our most enlarged
and spiritual moods, in our most elevated, heavenly frames, these
incomparable Documents are ever above us; and while they have defied
hostile criticism the most virulent and persevering, and baffled all
attempts to break them down, they minister alike to the wonder and delight
of the simple child and the hoary sage, bringing alike to the humblest and
the most exalted minds spiritual life, peace, hope, joy unspeakable and
full of glory.
The scene which we select
at present is but one of many illustrations of this feature of the
Gospels; but it is one which, though less noticed than many
others—probably from its quiet character—is to us all the more inviting,
as presenting to the thoughtful student an unobtrusive loveliness peculiar
to such pictures.
It occurs in Luke viii.
1-3:—
"And it came to pass
afterward, that he went through town and village, preaching and shewing
the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the Twelve were with him, and
certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary
called Magdalene, out of whom had gone tt seven devils, and Joanna the
wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which
ministered unto them of their substance."
Let us first study the
picture a little, and then try to give the reading of it, or the ideas for
all time which this picture embodies.
"Went," says our version,
and quite rightly, but these aorists, when intended to express a fact of
prior date to the time spoken of, are better rendered by pluperfects.
Touching are the few
glimpses which the Gospels give us of the domestic life of our Lord upon
earth. He and the Twelve made up one family: household we can scarcely
call it; for though the foxes had holes and the birds of the air had
nests, the Son of Man had not where to lay his head (Matt. viii. 20). But
they had a common purse. That was '' the bag" that Judas kept: "he bare
what was put therein" (John xii. 6). Strange that of all the Twelve it was
just the one whose ruling passion was the love of money that had the post
of treasurer; and stranger still, that though he abused his trust (for "he
was a thief"), yet the Master, to whose all-piercing eye the greed of his
heart and the unscrupulousness of his hands lay continually open, never
exposed him; and probably he was not even suspected by his
fellow-disciples till the atrocious sale of his Lord for a few pieces of
sordid silver revealed his true character! The common stock of the little
establishment appears to have been at times low enough; affectingly so.
When the temple-dues were called for, He had to obtain the sum by a
miracle; the only recorded instance of His resorting to that expedient to
meet a pecuniary emergency of His own. But the voluntary poverty to which
He stooped—"though rich, for our sakes becoming poor" (2 Cor. viii. 9)—and
the honour of relieving it which, during one whole preaching Circuit, He
conferred upon a few grateful and devoted women, opens up such features in
His story upon earth, and principles so enduring in the relation
subsisting between the now-glorified Redeemer above and His dear disciples
still upon earth, that it is a feast of fat things even to skim the
surface of it as here spread out before us.
The Prince of itinerant,
open-air preachers is "travelling," or "making a progress," through town
and village, proclaiming and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of
God; scattering far and wide the seed of the Gospel, in preparation for
the more systematic and continuous labours of those who were to follow Him
with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. It was the second of three (and
a kind of four) preaching Circuits which He took through favoured but
thankless Galilee. The Twelve, as usual, were with Him; but, what
distinguished this from all His other Circuits, He had besides a train of
women, whose attraction to Him had each a story of its own. Each of them
in her own way had found healing in His wings, and each seemed to say,
"Entreat me not to leave Thee, for whither Thou goest I will go." And He
bid them not away from Him. One clinging trophy of His power we read that
He did send away. The naked, frightful demoniac of Gadara, gloriously
healed, besought His wondrous Benefactor, on taking ship for the other
side, "that he might be with Him." "Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but
saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the
Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed,
and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him,
and all men did marvel." (Mark v. 18-20.) But our Galilean women had their
work to do in immediate connexion with Christ himself. His almoners, it
was fitting that they should be with Him. "They ministered unto Him of
their substance." ["Assisted him with their property." So Campbell renders
it, with that undignified modern air which pervades his whole translation
of the Gospels; as if to make our own all the dearer.]
Blessed Saviour! it melts
us to see Thee living upon the love of Thy healed people. That they bring
Thee their poor offerings, we wonder not. Thou hast "sown unto them
spiritual things," and they think it a small thing that Thou shouldst
"reap their carnal things." But dost Thou take it at their hand, and
subsist upon it?
And yet what is this but a
single example of what made up His whole earthly history? What was that
life but a perpetual mysterious meeting of opposites and seeming
contradictories? Liberty and law, Lord and servant, Riches and poverty,
Strength and weakness, Glory and shame, Life and death—in one most real,
loveable Person, whose warm, fleshly hand touched the leper to cleanse him
and the dead to give him life? As he travelled through Samaria in the heat
of the day, He was fain to rest Him on Jacob's well. But what music is
that which I hear from His lips? "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He said to the woman of Samaria,
"Give me to drink," for His lips were parched with the meridian drought.
But "in the last, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried,
saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." As He crossed
the sea of Galilee, in the evening of a day of incessant fatigue, He was
found "in the hinder part of the ship asleep upon a pillow," recruiting
His exhausted frame for more work that evening. But, on His disciples
awaking Him, saying, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?" for a storm
had arisen, and the poor men thought they were going to the bottom, He
arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, "Peace, be still!" When
the multitude that followed Him fainted from want of food, and He had none
to give them, yet would not send them away fasting, He more than once
turned the few loaves and fishes which the disciples happened to have for
their own supply into the food o£ thousands. But though He fed others
thus, He would not live upon miracles Himself, and in this Galilean tour
women are His almoners. Beautifully says a late distinguished German
commentator, "He who was the Support of the spiritual life of His people
disdained not to be supported by them in the body. He was not ashamed to
penetrate so far into the depths of poverty as to condescend to live upon
the alms of . love. He loved with a perfect and pure love, and so
permitted Himself to be loved. He gave all things to men His brethren, and
received all from them; enjoying thereby the pure blessings of love, which
is then only perfect when it is at the same time both giving and
receiving. What a feature in the picture of the Messiah! Who could invent
such things as these? He who feeds thousands by one word of His mouth
lives Himself upon the bread of the poor. It was necessary so to live, in
order that it might be so recorded." [Olshausen, in loc.]
The early Fathers of the
Church delighted to trace these stupendous contrasts in the life of
Christ. Infested with all manner of heresies on the Person of the
Redeemer, these facts of the Gospel History formed at once the rich
nutriment of their own souls, and the ready armoury whence they drew the
weapons of their warfare in defence and illustration of the truth. Hear,
for example, how the eloquent Greek, Gregory of Nazian-ZUM, [Born, A.D.
300; died, A.D. 390.] regales himself and his audience in one of his
discourses, kindling at the assaults to which the Person of his Lord was
subjected:—"He was wrapt, indeed, in swaddling clothes; but rising, He
burst the wrappings of the tomb. He lay, it is true, in a manger; but He
was glorified by angels, and pointed out by a star, and worshipped by
Magi. Why do ye stumble at the visible [in Him], not regarding the
Invisible? He had no form nor comeliness to the Jews; but to David He wa3
fairer than the children of men, yea, He glisters on the mount with a
light above the brightness of the sun, foreshadowing the glory to come. He
was baptized, indeed, as man, but He washed away sins as God; not that He
needed purification, but that He might sanctify the waters. He was tempted
as man, but He overcame as God; nay, He bids us be of good cheer, because
He hath overcome the world. He hungered, but He fed thousands; yea, He is
Himself the living and heavenly bread. He thirsted, but He cried, If any
man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink; nay, He promised that those
who believe in Him should themselves gush like a well. He was weary; but
He is Himself the rest of the weary and heavy laden. He was overpowered
with sleep; but He is upborne upon the sea, but He rebukes the winds, but
He upbears sinking Peter. ["This exultant repetition of "but," reminds one
of the triumphant exclamation of the apostle, " And such were some of you;
but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. vi. 11.)] He
pays tribute, but out of a fish; but He is the Prince of dependents. He is
saluted, 'Samaritan,' and 'Demoniac;' but He saves him that went down from
Jerusalem and fell among thieves; [This identification of the good
Samaritan with Christ himself, and of him that fell among thieves with
fallen and perishing man, is a favourite idea of the Fathers, as all
acquainted with their writings know; and those who are not, may see it in
Trench on the Parables.] nay, devils own Him, devils flee before Him,
legions of spirits He whelms in the deep, and sees the prince of the
devils falling as lightning. He is stoned, but not laid hold of; He prays,
but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He puts an end to weeping. He inquires
where Lazarus is laid, for he was man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was
God. He is sold, and at a contemptible rate, even thirty pieces of silver;
but He ransoms the world, and at a great price, even His own blood." After
carrying these contrasts down to the Judgment, the eloquent preacher
apologises for the somewhat artificial style in which he had indulged, to
meet the arts of the adversaries. Bishop Hall, in his Passion Sermon,
expatiating in a noble strain, slides into the same style. ["That head,
which is adored and trembled at by the angelical spirits, is all raked and
harrowed with thorns; that face, 'fairer than the children of men,' is all
besmeared with the filthy spittle of the Jews, and furrowed with His
tears; those eyes, clearer than the sun, are darkened with the shadow of
death; those ears, that hear the concerts of angels, now are filled with
the cursed speakings and scoffs of wicked men; those lips, that spake as
never man spake, that command the spirits both of light and darkness, are
scornfully wet with vinegar and gall; those feet, that trample on all the
powers of hell, are now nailed to the cross; those hands, that freely sway
the sceptre of the heavens, now carry the reed of reproach, and are nailed
to the tree of reproach; that whole body which was conceived by the Holy
Ghost, was all scourged, wounded, mangled. This is the outside of His
sufferings."] So pleasant a
field is this to range in, and so elevating a theme for meditation, that
we have almost lost sight of the point which suggested it—that one
affecting contrast which our Evangelist presents—Christ, the Healer of a
few women, living on the substance of His grateful debtors; preaching the
Gospel of His own kingdom, and not disdaining the hire whereof He is
worthy; "as poor, yet making many rich." On such a subject one is fain to
linger a while.
"Here may we sit and dream
Over the heavenly theme,
Till to our soul the former days return;
Till on the grassy bed,
Where thousands once He fed,
The world's incarnate Maker we discern."
(Continued in No. IV.) |
