Week 18 Sunday
Week 18 Sunday
His Declaration of Faith
Matthew 4:19; 28:18-20; Luke 22:31-32
We saw last week that Jesus cleansed the disciples and their world through the word spoken to them. It was a bold thing for Jesus to say to them, for he was declaring a faith, rather than a completed fact. It is true that they were cleansed from many things, but it was not true just then that they were “clean.” Were they not quarreling over first places, proposing to call down fire from heaven, and asking other disciples to stop their work because they did not belong to their party? This is hardly being “clean,” and yet Jesus was right.
As far as he was concerned, they were clean. The power they needed for perfect cleanness was all available. It seemed to Jesus so real that he declared it already done. This statement was the expression of his consciousness that this was all provided for in his word, and also the expression of his faith that they would connect up with that word and take the cleanness.
It took about sixty days before it was actually accomplished. This cleanness was accomplished at Pentecost, so this statement is made with about sixty “days of grace” attached to it. But at the first moment they were prepared to pay the price and take it, it was theirs. In other words, Jesus gave them a check they could cash any time they needed it. All they had to do was to endorse it and take the cash.
A minister, living in the backwoods and denied many things, was sent a check that was seemingly too good to be true. He went to the city, tremblingly presented it to the bank, and was told to endorse it; which he did by writing on the back, “I endorse this with all my heart!” That is what the disciples did. At Pentecost they endorsed with all their hearts the check that gave them cleanness.
O Christ, we thank you for the consciousness of your adequacy and of your faith in us. We will not disappoint that faith, for we will take that adequacy. Amen.
Week 18 Monday
Overcoming the World
1 Corinthians 2:12; 1 John 4:4; 5:4-5; Revelation 21:7
Among the most penetrating and hope-bringing words Jesus ever gave us were these, “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
“Ah, yes,” you say. “He did overcome the world, but that was two thousand years ago, and I am living now. What has this to do with me, now?” In answer we would say that two ideas belong together: (1) the announcement that Jesus was identified with the hunger and the sickness and the imprisonment of people—“I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me” (Matt. 25:40 CEB), and (2) this verse telling us that “in me you may have peace,” for “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). In other words, as he is identified with us in our defeats and sicknesses and hunger, so we are also identified with him in his victory. His overcoming the world is our overcoming the world, provided, of course, that we enter into it and relate ourselves to it and make it our very own.
This opens up to me an amazing possibility—I can make every one of his victories my very own. I can so relate my life to his in complete adjustment that when he overcomes, I overcome. I live actually by the life and victories of Another.
A missionary couple, married rather late in life, were deeply in love with each other. The husband at the breakfast table was telling guests of a dream he had the night before. The wife broke in, “Why, dear, did you dream that dream, or did I?” They were so identified that they couldn’t tell which one dreamed the dream!
We smile at the naiveté of these married lovers, but in very fact one can say to Christ, “Why, Master, did you overcome the world or did I?” and hear him gently answer, “Why we both did, for my victory is your victory.”
O Christ, I thank you that I, poor unworthy I, partake of the most magnificent thing this planet ever saw—your overcoming. Help me to relate myself to it completely and make it mine. Amen.
Week 18 Tuesday
Overcoming the World of the Commonplace
Luke 16:10; Acts 6:1-6; 2 Timothy 2:15
Jesus overcame the world of the commonplace. To live in a village for thirty years amid dull humanity and work at a carpenter’s bench, to support a widowed mother and the family, is not difficult if you see nothing beyond that. But if you feel the call of the living God upon you, and know in your heart of hearts that you have the one thing this sad world needs, and then to be compelled to stay in these cramping surroundings, and to do commonplace work for ninety percent of your life in order to live the remaining ten percent in fulfilling your real life purpose—if you do all this happily, then that is victory.
A French writer says: “Do you know what makes man the most suffering of all creatures? It is that he has one foot in the finite and the other in the infinite, and he is torn between two worlds.” But Jesus had one foot in the hard commonplace facts of Nazareth and another in the center of the world’s needs. Two terribly conflicting worlds—was he not torn between them, and therefore unhappy? No, for he made these worlds one. He brought the infinite into the finite and the finite into the infinite. The making of the plow had within it the remaking of the world, so he would make that plow well, and worthy of a world’s Redeemer. Someone has said, “If you do a small thing as though it were a great thing, God will let you do the great thing as though it were a small thing.” So day by day in commonplace Nazareth he wove with infinite patience the seamless robe which he would wear before the world.
Someone asked a woman of the Balkans if she did not tire of the awful task of sewing such minute stitches day after day. “Oh, no,” she replied, “this is my wedding dress.” These stitches were no longer commonplace; they were related to something big.
O Christ, you overcame dull tasks and dull hours, for you related them to the infinite. Help me to do the same. Amen.
Week 18 Wednesday
Overcoming the Handicap of a Mediocre Family
Judges 6:15; John 1:46; Acts 4:13-14
Jesus overcame two handicaps: he had no formal education, and he did not belong to a leading family. He suffered in the eyes of the educated and cultured because he had no learning which would correspond to our college degree: “He’s never been taught! How has he mastered the Law?” (John 7:15 CEB). But he overcame that, and made what he had so real and worthwhile that the people who followed him saw that he knew life and could give it. You and I can enter into that victory.
Then, again, there was victory over a commonplace family tradition. He came from a peasant family, from a despised place. And when you look at his family history as seen in the genealogy you see some streams of rather evil blood poured into that family tradition. Many of us have to gain victory at this point, for we come, not from “the best families,” but from very common stock. But that very handicap can make us start a new tradition. We are told by Harry Emerson Fosdick that Shakespeare was the son of a bankrupt butcher and a woman who could not write her name; Beethoven was the son of a consumptive mother and a father who was a drunkard; Schubert was the son of a peasant father and a mother in domestic service; Michael Faraday was born in a stable, his father an invalid blacksmith, his mother a common drudge.*
When people in the 1600s objected to a noble lady marrying nonconformist minister Matthew Henry because of his lowly birth, she replied, “I don’t care where he came from, I’m only interested in where he is going to, and I want to go with him.”
We too can enter into the victory that Jesus gained and make people forget where we have come from as they watch us going on with him.
O Christ, we thank you that you did overcome these two things, help us that we may begin in you a new learning and a new heredity. Amen.
* Chicago: The Daily Herald (November 6, 1925), http://www.newspapers.com/newspage /37207984/, accessed April 15, 2014.
Week 18 Thursday
Overcoming the World of the Spectacular
Matthew 6:1-6; John 7:2-8
Jesus was fiercely tempted to be spectacular. He had the power, could it not be used to impress people? Of course it would all be in the furtherance of the kingdom, and would it not therefore be right? But he turned down very decisively this temptation. He overcame the world of the spectacular. He would win by worth and service alone. Everything else was of the devil. He was right. Had he advertised himself, we should have forgotten him. His reticence is more vocal than his self-display would have been. He did not go to the pinnacle of the temple, but we put him on the throne of the universe for this very reason. He refused a miracle before Herod, and we denounce the asking and remember the refusal.
Today the man who is to live victoriously must find victory at this place, for we live in an age of advertising, sometimes “leather-lunged” (inordinately loud). It is easy for the Christian to allow this psychology of advertising of goods to run over into self-advertising. One shudders to see the light of the church turned off, all except the stream of light pouring upon the praying pastor, the audience thereby tacitly invited to keep its eyes open to watch the display.
A beautiful tower in Florida is dedicated to the people of the state, and charming music comes from the “Singing Tower.” It was a lovely thing to do, but the donor, Edward W. Bok, spoiled it all by having his own grave at the foot of the tower. Had he put it in some secluded place in the garden, we should have gone to it to pay our respects, but somehow I instinctively turned my back when I saw the grave with the great tower as its monument. The “Singing Tower” had lost its music.
Christ kept his music, for he refused to blow his own horn. And millions now sing his praises! We too can enter into this victory and make it our very own.
O Christ of the reticent heart, teach us your lowly ways, for we see they lead to the heights. Amen.
Week 18 Friday
Overcoming the World of Haste
Psalm 57:7; 112:7; Isaiah 28:16; 30:15; John 11:6-7
The Man who had most to do seemed never to be in a hurry. He was launching a kingdom that would turn out to be the ultimate order for all humanity, and yet in the launching of it he seemed to be in no feverish, fussy haste. Not that he was idle, far from it. He never wasted a moment, and yet he was never fussily busy.
The Hindus worship the great god Hari (pronounced hurry). The West also worships at the shrine of the great god Hurry! This is the god that dispenses fevers and strained hearts and unlovely lives, too busy to live.
Jesus said to Martha, “You are anxious and troubled about many things.” Martha probably said beneath her breath, “Yes, but if I am not anxious and troubled, you’ll go hungry.” But Martha, with all her rush and haste fell down in her supposedly strong point. Note this passage from another visit mentioned in Mark 11: “On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.” Why did Martha let him go from Bethany without anything to eat? She fell down where she thought she was strongest.
The fussy haste of the modern day has also fallen down in its strongest point. We speeded up our machines and our civilization and then left millions upon park benches unemployed, idle, and hungry. We failed where we thought ourselves strong.
We must regain victory at the place of the unhurried heart. We have put up this motto in our ashram, taken from a Greek writer, with our addition: “Whirl is king, having driven out Zeus—but not here!” With the decay of religion (Zeus), the ancient Greeks turned to “Whirl!” as king. But in our ashram we say, “Calm is king, having brought in Christ.” So in both our ashram and our hearts we must enthrone the unhasting Christ, that the benediction of his quiet might spread to every portion of our being.
O Christ, we thank you for your victory over unresting haste. Give to us too that victory of the quiet, assured heart that knows that, in the end, God’s victory is certain. Amen.
Week 18 Saturday
Overcoming Impatience with Bungling Instruments
Luke 9:46-56; 22:49-51
The kingdom that Jesus launched required delicate handling. Its virtues might very easily turn into vices by the slightest twist. Its light might turn into darkness. In such circumstances he would have tremendous temptation to be out of patience with the bungling instruments of his kingdom. It is a wonder he didn’t dismiss his disciples at a number of places along the way. When they twisted his highest into something else, why didn’t he let them go and try it with another group? He didn’t, for he would make this the group! That would be victory!
Often we face the same temptation: dismiss this group of employees and try another; get rid of the troublesome wife or husband and start all over again; dismiss these Christian workers and try to bring in the kingdom through a fresh group; get rid of our pastor and try for a better one; change congregations, the next may be more convertible, and so on. All of this is in its essence a running away from the problem, an escape mentality. It is not victory; it is an attempt at escape.
After all, the next group we have to deal with will have the same streaky human nature. The new brooms will sweep clean for a few days—and then the dust! That second wife will not be an angel! Leaps from the frying pan into the fire are often very short and easy.
Jesus overcame this impatience with bungling instruments, and made those instruments into changed people, who changed the world. That was victory.
We must learn how to refashion people—the ordinary, streaky people around us, remembering that as we put up with them, Christ has to put up with us. Even if we do our best we may not succeed. But we are all convertible!
O Christ, we thank you for your patience and persistence with us. Help us to deal with others in the same patient, redemptive way. Amen.