Chapter 10: FOR ME AND THEE
Chapter 10: FOR ME AND THEE
Matt. xvii. 24-27
Away despair! my gracious Lord doth hear.
Though winds and waves assault my keel,
He doth preserve it; He doth steer,
Ev'n when the boat seems most to reel.
Storms are the triumph of His art;
Well may He close His eyes, but not His heart"
— Herbert.
THE MASTER WAS on His way ascending to Jerusalem. Already fifty miles from Hermon had been traversed on this southward journey; and Capernaum, with Peter's home as the rest-house, offered a convenient halting-place. But evidently its inhabitants were animated by a very different spirit from that of the earlier days of His blessed ministry. The streets were no longer crowded by sick folk waiting for His healing touch; nor was the synagogue open to His ministry. The seeds of jealousy and suspicion which the Pharisees had sown with such lavish eagerness had produced a harvest of tares.
The atmosphere was laden with the blight of mistrust.
Faces were averted that used to smile.
One symptom of this changed attitude presented itself almost immediately on His arrival. The collectors of the Temple tax, which was a voluntary levy on all Jews, encountered Peter with the challenge, "Doth not your Master pay the half-shekel?" This tax was of very ancient origin, dating from the days of Moses, and supplied the funds required for the maintenance of the Temple services. It was a voluntary tax, and must therefore be distinguished from the Roman taxes, which were obligatory on Jew and Gentile alike. Religious teachers, such as Rabbis, were exempted from the payment of the Temple tax by general consent; and the universal respect which was paid our Lord in the earlier days of His ministry gave Him complete immunity from any question as to His liability to pay it.
But now that He had lost caste and was being hunted down by Herod and the rulers, Peter, as His representative, was accosted with a challenge which proved that the cordon of respect and reverence which had formerly surrounded Him was broken down. There may have been a further insinuation that the Lord had veered over to the Sadducee party, who were extremely lax about the whole matter.
Peter said at once that his Master would certainly pay the tribute; but when he reached the home he learnt that Jesus knew all about the demand, for he was anticipated in his story by the question whether it was customary for kings to demand tribute from their sons. Surely the hasty promise that the tribute should be paid was incompatible with the confession of only a few days before — "the Son of the living God."
This brief conversation made it clear that our Lord had noticed the change in the treatment that He might henceforth expect; but He had no intention of standing on His rights. Since no principle was involved, He would not contest the demand. What course should be adopted must be settled not in the high court of conscience, but the lower one of expediency, and by the effect which His attitude would exert on the most conservative school of His opponents. They would be certain to catch at a refusal as a fresh ground for prejudicing Him and His teaching before the people; and a fresh stumbling-block would be cast in their path. Lest, therefore, the most scrupulous conscience should be offended, He declared that He was willing to meet the demand for them both.
A profound principle is involved here, which calls for our careful heed. When questions arise in life, which do not involve principle and conscience, we should be prepared to make concessions to the conscientious scruples of those whom we may be able to influence for good. In i Cor. ix. the Apostle Paul acted on that principle. He insisted that he was free from many things, to which he nevertheless conformed, for the sake of maintaining his influence on some whom he desired to lead afterwards into the liberty of Christ.
In Christ he was free of all, but for Christ's sake he became the servant of all. All things, he said, were lawful to him, but not all things were expedient, because they failed to edify, and might prove a stumbling-block to others. " Give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jews, or to Gentiles, or to the Church of God; even as I pleased all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved."
As Christians we dare not make payments which will conflict with conscience, but where conscience is not concerned we must be ready to meet any legitimate demand made by public use and custom. Asserting our freedom, we must not give needless offence; and in this our Lord will never fail to be our partner. He is ever willing to become surety for payments made in His Name and for the sake of His Gospel.
I. CHRIST PAYS THE CHARGES FOR HIS PENNILESS DISCIPLES. — At His bidding Peter had left all to follow Him. Boats, nets, and the fish-market were forsaken.
If he still kept his boat, it was only to assist his Master in His strenuous life. Months had passed since he was seen among his old fisher companions. No income, therefore, accrued from his craft for the upkeep of his home; and without doubt the Master arranged that a certain amount should be allocated from the common purse for the maintenance of that home and its inmates. Whenever you give yourself absolutely to Christ and His service, not at your whim, but by His direct invitation, you may reckon absolutely on His thoughtful provision; and even if your faith should give out, He will remain faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
The two women — Peter's wife and her mother — may have viewed this arrangement from the first with a certain amount of distrust, and during the absence of the whole party thirty miles to the north their faith must have been put to the test, for clearly, on Peter's arrival home, there was not a single coin left to meet this tax.
They had expended their entire store; and Peter must have been startled by the glaring contrast between the glory of the Transfiguration vision, with his proposal for three tabernacles there, and the actual exigencies of his own humble home. We, who get away to our Conventions and Retreats, must never lose sight of the loving and loyal hearts that are left behind "by the stuff." It is not befitting that we should disport ourselves on the slopes of Hermon, unless we are thoughtful and careful for those whom we have left in the fisherman's home.
Peter rightly felt that this burden was not for himself to carry alone. By his summons to leave all, his Master had clearly made Himself liable for such demands. There could be no doubt as to the issue, though the precise manner of deliverance was not apparent.
It was an immense relief, therefore, to find himself forestalled and anticipated before he could relate his case — Christ knew of it and was prepared with a reply.
Take heart, my friend! Before you call. He will answer, and while you are yet speaking His ready help is nigh. He knows that for His sake you have renounced many things that are legitimate for others.
They have not been called to your life of consecration and ^elf-denial. For Christ's sake you have renounced sources of income about which other Christian persons have no scruples. For the Gospel's sake you have renounced a love that, however pure in itself, refused to go all lengths for God. For the sake of dying multitudes in the far-off lands you are breaking away from old moorings and launching out into untried scenes.
Be of good cheer! Your Master is not unmindful. In some way or other He will make good. Do not hesitate to take your need to Him. He cannot fail! Every one who has left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands for His Name's sake shall receive a hundred-fold.
With what awe Peter must have taken his disused fishing-line from the nail and gone forth on the lake, wondering where to cast his hook, but sure that through the depths some fish was being guided through "the path of the sea " towards him. According to its wont, the fish had caught at a glittering coin, dropped by a passenger or a child over a boatside. It had carried its unwelcome burden till able to disgorge it into Peter's wondering hands; and then, thrown back in the water, it had gone on its way, little weening how it had served its Creator's purpose. If not by such a miracle, yet somehow the Lord will ever meet the need of His devoted servants. None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate. He has but to open His hand, and He can satisfy the desire of them that fear Him. The tax-gatherer is ever at our door with his demand, but Jesus will be equal to every emergency.
II. OUR MASTER LINKS HIMSELF TO A SINFUL MAN. — "That take and give for Me and thee." It should be noted that the fish yielded not two half-shekels, but one coin — the stater — which was their equivalent. The conjunction and should be noted also, as the golden link between the Saviour and His weak and fallible disciple. This surely is the wonder of Eternity — that He should call us brethren, that He should identify Himself with us before His Father and the holy angels, that He should request that we should be with Him where He is, beholding His glory and included in His eternal Kingdom. Sometimes it seems incredible, but it was determined by the counsels of God before the first seraph broke into song, and it is verified by the experience of all the Christian centuries.
I see Him exhausted but triumphant when the forty days' temptation are concluded, when the Prince of this world has tried all his lures in vain, and He smiles radiantly, promising that I too shall tread on the lion and adder. He says, "This is for Me and thee." I see Him in the garden glade, as He drains to the dregs the cup which the Father puts into His hands; His voice falters with the extremity of His grief, but He tells me that He has overcome not for Himself alone, but for me. He says again, "This is for Me and thee."
I see Him dying yonder on the Cross. The iron has entered His soul. The mid-day mid-night has just passed. He cries like a conqueror, "It is finished," and as He does so. He catches sight of me bathed in tears of anguish at its foot, and assures me that His obedience unto death was necessary to fulfil the Father's will; but it is also for my redemption. He says yet a third time, "This is for Me and thee."
I see Him emerging from the tomb in the dawn of the third day. He has robbed Death of its sting and the Grave of its victory. I hear His glad announcement, "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore "; and as He passes along the garden path He assures me that in Him I also am risen.
Again He says, "This is for Me and thee."
Finally, I stand with the little group on Olivet, when He is parted from them, and a radiant chariot cloud receives Him from our sight; and as His presence fades on my mortal vision. His voice drops from above, saying, "I go to receive a Kingdom; I will ask the Father, and He shall give Me the Holy Spirit in His mighty fulness to reside for ever in My Divine human nature, and I will impart Him to thee also "; and once more He says, "This is for Me and thee."
Thus He links Himself to a sinful man, and who shall separate what God hath joined together? Neither life nor death, things present or to come, can snap that link.
III. CHRIST MAKES MORTALS HIS ALMONERS. — "Take and give for Me and thee." He has received gifts for men, and yearns to bestow them; but for this purpose He requires almoners to distribute to the crowd, as of old His Apostles took from His hands the bread and fish, and gave to the five thousand men, together with women and children. He might have addressed these same words to them: "Take and give."
Is not this the law of Christ's own life? Having received of the Father the promise of the Paraclete, He shed Him forth with both hands on the waiting Church. It pleased the Father that in Him all the fulness should dwell, and of that fulness have all we received, and grace upon grace. If we may dare put it so, our Lord has received His inheritance from the Father, and has given it all away to us, as co-heirs with Himself. He has taken and given. From the storehouse of eternity He has received the First-born share, in ingots of gold, but has changed them into common coin, that we in turn may take and give. " Being enriched in everything unto all liberality, which worketh thanksgiving to God."
The flowers are always taking from sunshine, dew and air what they give forth in colour, fragrance, and beauty. In the carboniferous age the gigantic vegetable growths took out of the unstinting sun-power the forces that coal gives back in our hearths and furnaces.
The dumb animals are ever taking from the herbage of the mountains or the grass-lands of the valleys the nutriment, which they impart to us by the sacrifice of life. Great scientists are constantly engaged in studying how to get more help from the mysterious forces which surround us. They cut cunning channels which we call machinery, and which tap the great rivers of energy as they flow through the highways of the Universe, that ordinary folk may talk through the telephone, speak down rays of light, and fill the highways with their motors. The law of all discovery is take and give.
The tragic failure of innumerable multitudes is that they have not learned to take. They pray, and pray fervently, but they have not acquired the art of taking or receiving. Our Lord said, "All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that you have taken them, you shall have them." And the Apostle sent to the Roman Christians this emphatic message: "The gift of God by the grace of the one man has abounded to the many . . . and they that take the abundance of grace shall reign in life." The Apostle does not bid us pray for the abundance of grace, but calls on us to take it. One of the great problems in the art of prayer is the delimitation of the frontiers between Importunity and Taking.
With many taking is a lost art. They pray, but fail to take. Herein is the source of bitter disappointment. We pray, agonize, and strive, but often fail to see that the cargo has already been delivered on the wharf, and is in the depot, waiting to be claimed and fetched away. Before we can take we must be sure that we are not prompted by personal ambition, but are acting in the Name (i. e., according to the Nature) of our Lord, and are standing on the distinct warrant of a promise. When these conditions are fulfilled, we hear our Father's voice, as we stand in His holy presence, saying: "Child, thou art ever with Me, and all that I have is thine; take, and go thy way to give." We may not feel to have received. Ours is the reckoning of a naked faith on the unfailing faithfulness of God. We go forth to act on the assurance that we have received, that our supplies are ample and inexhaustible, that whatever demands may knock at our door, our Master will adequately meet them all.
We cannot give unless we have learned to take; and we cannot take unless we are prepared to give.
If we endeavour to take with no plan or intention of giving, we shall find that our hand falls paralyzed by our side. The faithless servant who received the talent, and buried it for his own use, when needed, forfeited it.
Let us go forth to give. There are aching hearts, marred lives, dumb, outstretched, open hands on all sides. Let us be channels through which God may answer prayers, and almoners, to whom He shall be able to make all grace abound, because He knows that we shall abound to every good work. He will feed the stream from inexhaustible fountains. He will minister seed for sowing, and will provide bread for the sower.
His Angels shall minister to us. All our needs will be met according to His riches in glory. Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall Christ give into your bosom, for with what measure ye mete.
He will measure to you again. Wherefore "Take and give."