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DOST thou wonder that thy Lord was tempted and
sorrowful? It is indeed the marvel of eternity; and yet not so marvelous,
when we consider the beings whom he elected to succor, help, and save,
and of whom each of us is one.
Had he chosen to lay hold of fallen angels, with
a view of raising them from their lost estate, he would without doubt have
taken upon himself their nature, and descended into the pit; identifying
himself with their miseries, and paving, by his sufferings, a pathway across
the great fixed gulf which intervenes between their lost estate and Paradise.
But verily he took not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham; and
had no alternative therefore but to assimilate himself in all points to
the nature of those whom, in infinite mercy and grace, he brothered.
There are two things thou needest, reader; and not
thou only, but all men, reconciliation, and succor
in the hour of temptation. These instinctive cravings of the soul
are as mighty and as irrepressible as the craving of the body for sleep
or food; and they are as evident amid our luxury and refinement as in primeval
forests, or beside the historic rivers of antiquity-the Nile, the Indus,
the Euphrates.
To meet these two needs, men have constituted one
of their number a priest. That word has an ominous sound
to our ears, because it has been associated with immoralities and cruelty.
The world has never seen more unscrupulous or rapacious tyrants than its
priests, whether of Baal or Moloch, of Judaism or the Papacy. All through
the ages it has seemed impossible for men to receive power in the spiritual
realm without abusing it to the injury of those who sought their help.
Study the history of the priesthood, which murdered Christ because he threw
too strong a light upon its hypocrisies and villainies, and you have the
history of every priestcraft which has darkened the world with crime, and
saturated its soil with the blood of the noblest and saintliest of men.
And yet the idea of the priest is a natural
and a beautiful one. It is natural for men who are conscious of
sin barring their access into the presence of a holy God, and demanding
sacrifice in order to peace, to say to one of their fellows, "Our hands
are stained with blood, and grimed with toil; our garments spotted with
pollution and dust; our lives too busy for us to spare time for those rites
which alone can fit the sinner to stand before the eye of God: do for us
what we cannot do for ourselves; prepare thyself by holy rite and vigil
and fasting from sin, so as to be able to stand in the presence-chamber
of the All-Holy; and when thou hast acquired the right of audience with
him, speak for us, atone for us, make reconciliation for our sins; and
then come forth to us, succoring and blessing those who cannot attain to
thy position, but must ever struggle as best they may with the strong,
rough, bad world in which they are doomed to live."
This seems the underlying thought of the vast system
which has built temples in every land, reared altars on every soil, and
constituted a priesthood amid the most degraded as well as the most civilized
races of mankind.
And there is great beauty in the work
and ministry of a true priest. Not always engaged in the darker work of
sacrificing flocks of fleecy sheep, by which alone, in those rude days,
the cost of sin could be computed; the true priest would have other, and,
perhaps, more congenial work. He would be the shepherd of the timid souls
around him; listening to confessions whispered over the heads of the dumb
victims; feeling compassion for erring and wayward ones; comforting those
who were passing through scenes of sorrow, till faces shadowed with tears
began to gleam with holy light; arresting the proud hand of the oppressor,
as Ambrose did in lawless days, to rescue the poor from the mailed blow.
Never studying self-interest; never consuting ease or pleasure or gain;
never resting while one poor wanderer was away in the snowdrift or on the
wild. Yes, and more: he would be the spokesman of souls, praying for those
who did not pray for themselves; praying for those who knew not what or
how to ask; interceding for the whole race of man. Ah! how often must such
a one have been compelled by the pressure of the burden to go apart from
the busy crowds to some lone spot, that he might pour out before God the
long litany of need and sorrow and temptation which had been poured into
his heart. Lovely ideal; ah, how seldom realized!
All this is Jesus Christ, and more.
Words fail indeed to say all that he is in himself, or all that he can
be to those that trust him. And it is because of this that he is able to
give such blessed help to all who need it. Let us consider that help.
IT Is SOVEREIGN AND UNEXPECTED HELP. Angels fell.
Once they were the peers of heaven. They sang its songs, plucked its flowers
of amaranth, and drank its tranquil bliss. They loved its King, and served
him, like the sunbeam, with unpolluted brightness and unswerving direction.
But, alas! they fell from heaven to hell. And for them there is no help,
so far as we can learn. "God taketh not hold of angels."
But he has set his heart upon us, the poor children
of dust, the creatures of the transient moments of time, who had fallen
by the same sin of self-will. Here is a theme for meditation! We cannot
pierce the mystery, or understand its full import. But we may, with wondering
faith and joy, accept the chalice, brimming with unmerited, unexpected,
undeserved grace, and drain its draughts of bliss.
IT IS HUMAN HELP. " Made like unto his brethren."
The peculiarity of this phrase testifies to Christ's pre-existence and
glory, and indicates how great a stoop on his part it involved ere he could
be like man. He had to be made like man, i.e.,
he was not like man in the original constitution of his being. We cannot
solve the mystery of the holy incarnation. And yet the thought of it has
never been quite foreign to the heart of man. Many a Greek and Hindu myth
rested on an instinctive craving for the presence of God in human flesh,
which became parent to the belief that such a thing had been, and might
be again. Even in the highlands of Galatia, the most ready explanation
of the miracles of Paul was that the gods had come down in the likeness
of men.
But though there be such a profound mystery resting
on this subject, yet the union of the Almighty with a human life is at
least not more incomprehensible than the union of a spiritual, unmaterial
principle, as the soul, with a material organism, as the human body. When
the secrets of our own nature have been unraveled, it will be time enough
for us to demand of the Almighty that, when he assumes our nature, lie
should disrobe himself of all mystery. How exquisite is the arrangement
that God's help should come to us through the Son of Man; that our Helper
should shed true human tears, and feel true human pity Jew though he was,
child of the most exclusive and intolerant of peoples, yet the humanity
which is greater than Judaism makes us oblivious to all else than that
lie is our Brother.
IT IS HIGH-PRIESTLY HELP. The full meaning of this
phrase will appear as we proceed. It is sufficient to say here, that all
that men have sought to realize in human priesthoods, but in vain, is realized
with transcendent beauty in him. Nor is there any way of weaning men from
the human priesthoods which deceive, but to present to them the all-glorious,
immaculate priesthood of Christ.
It is of little use only to denounce the priests
that are coming back to Protestant England through a thousand covert channels,
or the people who go to them. There is a craving in their heart which impels
them. It is of no use to fight against nature. But satisfy it; give it
its true nutriment; supply its wants with reality; and it will be content
to drop the false for the true, the paste diamond for the Golconda pebbles,
the human for the divine. Men must have a priest; and they are going back
to the mummeries of Rome, because there has been too scanty a presentation
in our pulpits of the priesthood of Jesus.
IT IS MERCIFUL AND FAITHFUL HELP. When we are in
need, we want help wedded with mercy. The patient
in the infirmary does not like to be treated as a broken watch. Oh that
he were at home again, to be nursed by the soft hands of his mother, which
ever feel so skillful and gentle and soft! We need merciful help, which
does not upbraid, is not in too great a hurry to listen, and gladly takes
all extenuating circumstances into account. Such mercy is in the heart
of Jesus. And his help is ever faithful, too. This word has
a fine tint of meaning, almost lost in our translation, giving the idea
of one who runs up at the first cry of distress. He neither slumbers nor
sleeps. He watches us with a gaze which is not for a moment diverted from
us. He sees us through the storm. He sits beside the molten metal. He will
help us right early -i.e., when the day breaks. You may be bereft of all
power of consecutive thought, unable to utter a single intelligible sentence,
frantic with agony and remorse; but if you can only moan, he will instantly
respond. "He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry."
IT IS HELP BASED ON RECONCILIATION FOR SIN. Sin
is one of the greatest facts in our history. It is impossible to ignore
it. You cannot explain man unless you take it into account. For this the
world has been covered with the apparatus of sacrifice; and the cry has
rung in a monotone of despair, "How shall man be just with God?"
But Jesus met the demands of conscience, echoing
those of a broken law, when on Calvary, as High-Priest, he offered himself
as victim, and made an all-sufficient, satisfactory, and complete sacrifice
for the sin of the world.
Burdened one, groaning under the load of sin, remember
that he bare thy sins in his own body on the tree. Approach the holy God,
reminding him of that fact, and daring on account of it to stand unabashed
and accepted in his sight.
IT IS SYMPATHETIC HELP FOR THE TEMPTED. " Them that
are tempted." Within that circle we all stand. Each is tempted in subtler,
if not in grosser, forms; in extraordinary, if not in ordinary, ways. You
have been trying, oh, so hard, to be good; but have met with some sudden
gust, and been overcome. Tempted to despair! Tempted to yield to Potiphar's
wife! Tempted to become a brute! No lawn without the fowler's snare! No
day without its sorrow! No night without its noisome pestilence! No rose
without its thorn!
Do we not need succor? Certainly; and he is able
to succor the tempted, because he has suffered the very worst that temptation
can do. Not that there was ever one symptom or thought of yielding; yet
suffering to the point of extreme anguish, beneath the test.
O sufferers, tempted ones, desolate and not comforted,
lean your heads against the breast of the God-Man, whose feet have trodden
each inch of your thorny path; and whose experiences of the power of evil
well qualify him to strengthen you to stand, to lift you up if you have
fallen, to speak such words as will heal the ache of the freshly gaping
wound. If he were impassive, and had never wept or fought in the Garden
shadows, or cried out forsaken on the cross, we had not felt him so near
as we can do now in all hours of bitter grief.
O matchless Saviour, on whom God our Father has
laid our help, we can dispense with human sympathy, with priestly help,
with the solace and stay of many a holy service; but thou art indispensable
to us, in thy life, and death, and resurrection, and brotherhood, and sympathizing
intercession at the throne of God!