127. Jesus Christ--Healer

Jesus Christ--Healer

Luk 4:16-22. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath-day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias: and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord And he closed the book, and gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.

We read, in the history of the patriarchal ages, of an illustrious personage who exercised at once the functions of a priest and of a sovereign; Melchizedec, “King of Salem, and priest of the Most High God.” He, whom this venerable person thus early represented to the world, united to these two characters, a third, less splendid indeed, but not less important, that of a teacher and instructer of mankind; and thus He became all that a guilty, enslaved, ignorant world stood in need of. In the blessed Jesus, O wretched man, thou beholdest the great High Priest of thy profession, who hath, by one offering, one victim, one blood, procured the remission of all thy offences; the Prince of the kings of the earth, who has broken asunder the bands of thy yoke, and asserted thee into the “glorious liberty of the sons of God;” and the great, the unerring Teacher sent from God, who spake as never man spake, whose lessons make men wise unto salvation. As the Sovereign and Lord of Nature we have seen him exercising dominion over the powers of the worlds visible and, invisible, putting Satan to flight by a word, receiving the homage and ministrations of angels. As an High Priest, “after the order of Melchisedec,” we shall in the progress of this history behold him offering himself, once for all, “a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour unto God.” We are this evening to sit at his feet, and to listen to him in his humbler and more familiar character of the meek, patient, and condescending instructor of the weak, the ignorant, and the prejudiced. And, O may the gracious words which proceed from his mouth not only excite our wonder, but penetrate and melt our hearts, kindle our repentings together, and put all that remains of our existence under the dominion of love. His first labors of affection were bestowed upon his kindred and acquaintance, they were consecrated to the improvement of the companions and friends of early life. He had hitherto taught them by example, he now teaches them out of the written word. Had he been covetous of fame or of honor, he would surely have chosen another theater on which to display his superior powers, for he well knew that no prophet is accepted in his own country. He well knew that eminent excellency excites envy, that envy produces malignity, and that malice prompts to evil speaking. But regard to his own interest and ease is lost in compassion to others, and the love of reputation with men reverently bends to zeal for the glory of Gad. Every circumstance of the scene before us is interesting and instructive.

We have in the preceding Lecture adverted to those of place, it was “in Galilee at Nazareth where He had been brought up,” and “in the synagogue.” Attend now to the season, it was on the Sabbath-day. As to the pure all places, so all times are pure, yet to man, weak and imperfect as he is, distinction of both time and place is important and necessary. Show me a man who is habitually and uniformly that in the world, which decency obliges him to appear to be in the house of God, and I shall not presume to condemn him, though he frequent not the temple; although such an one is of all others the least likely to desert it. Show me the man whose every day is a day of order, of piety, of mercy, and of good works, and such an one shall, for me, spend the seventh day, in what manner he will; though such an one is of all others the most likely to put respect on the ordinance of God. Who of all those, who are born of a woman, stood least in need of the influence and assistance of sacred edifices and seasons? He whose conversation was continually in heaven, whose “meat and drink it was to do the will of his heavenly Father,” who never lost sight, for a moment, of the great end of his mission. And who was so regular in his attendance on the exercises of religious worship; who was so exact in the observance of every institution that was stamped with marks of divine authority? The sabbath is an ordinance of mercy, designed by Him who “preserveth man and beast,” to be an interruption of painful toil, a restorer of exhausted nature, a season of repose; but in perfect consistency with this, it is a season of mental exertion of beneficence; of devout contemplation, of virtuous, social intercourse. But the observance of the sabbath had, when our Savior came into the world, degenerated into a narrow and groveling superstition, which separated from it every idea of mercy and good-will to men, and the spirit was sunk in the letter. It therefore became this great Teacher, to restore the institution to its primitive design and use, and to guard mankind equally against the extremes of superstition, on the one hand, and of profanity on the other: and this he does with a wisdom, a delicacy, and a dignity peculiar to himself. Who can think slightly of what he treated with respect? Who dares to violate what he observed as “the holy of the Lord and honorable?” And who again can think he is doing honor to God by expressing indifference, unkindness, and want of sympathy to men? He who attended the synagogue, who read and expounded the Scriptures on the Sabbath; on the Sabbath also restored the withered hand, defended his disciples from the charge of profanation, displayed the character of the sovereign Lord of the sabbath, as preferring mercy to sacrifice, and as having instituted “the Sabbath for man, and not man for the sabbath.”

Observe farther, the evangelist takes care to inform us that Christ’s attendance on the services of the synagogue and the sabbath was not merely accidental or occasional, but habitual and stated: ashis custom was. What we do according to no fixed rule, we do feebly and confusedly. What we do seldom, we do with reluctance and dislike; and from dislike the natural transition is to total omission. On the contrary, what is subjected to rule is done accurately and efficiently; what we do habitually, we do with ease and delight; for custom, says the proverb, and with much truth, is a second nature. The Savior of the world, accordingly, vouchsafed to become an example here also, as of everything else that is wise and good; He was a pattern of regular, orderly conduct; from his childhood, and upward. He was a silent instructer, of the successive stages of rising existence, in docility, in contentment, in submission in regularity.

Let no one tell me that it is useless to habituate children betimes to the forms of devotion; to the observance of institutions whose meaning and intention they do not fully comprehend: to restraints which to them appear harsh and unreasonable. It is a great thing, indeed it is everything, to be under the government of innocent or praiseworthy customs: to be inured to the laws of order; to be prepared for thinking for themselves, and for having their sentiments heard and attended to, by learning to pay respect to the understanding, to the opinions, and to the experience of others. Think with what holy indignation, He, whose name we bear, would have listened to a proposal to violate his custom, and to make the hour of the devotions of the synagogue, the hour of walking into the cornfields! The historian is here singularly minute, and gives wonderful vivacity to his representation, by going into a detail of particulars. Among these, we must advert to his posture and attitude, when employed in reading to the people the word of God. He stood up for to read. Nature seems to point this out as an attitude of reverence and respect. Since the days of Abraham, who stood up and bowed himself before the people of the land wherein he dwelt, the wise, the benevolent, and the courteous have employed it as an expression of regard to superior sanctity, power, majesty, or multitude. Posture is, in itself, still more indifferent than time or place; but nothing is indifferent in the eyes of true wisdom, by which the interests of either human virtue or felicity can be affected. Truth is the same whether delivered in an erect or a recumbent posture. But in matters of this sort, what says common practice? Will my compliance conciliate affection, procure attention, give force to what is said? Then I will cheerfully conform. Will my singularity give offence, will it awaken prejudice, will it in the cause I mean to promote? Then I will not affect singularity; I will not be uncomplying nor unkind; and I will dissent only where conscience is concerned, and where compliance would be criminal.

How melancholy it is to reflect, on the talents which have been perverted, on the time which has been wasted, but that is comparatively nothing, on the angry spirits which have been excited, on the oceans of blood which have been spilt, in determining whether standing, sitting, or kneeling whether this or the other unessential circum stance were most adapted to the nature o things, or most conformable to the will, or conductive to the glory, of the Creator. In this too, therefore, I consider the example of Christ as intelligible, decided, and instructive.

He “stood up to read.” Happily for the world, its information, and instruction in matters of everlasting moment were not entrusted to the uncertainty, the changeableness, and the corruptibility of oral tradition. He who bestowed on man the gift of speech, for the mutual, communication of thought, gave likewise the pattern of permanent speech, by means of writing; by which thought is transmitted from region to region, from generation to generation, unsophisticated, unimpaired. Hence the events which Mosesrecorded, and which Isaiah predicted, the precepts of the Law and the promises of the Gospel, descend from age to age in equal purity, weight, and measure: and the son sees, reads, and apprehends the selfsame truth which was the light and joy of his progenitors. And what must it have been to hear the sublime and pathetic strains of Isaiah pronounced by the tongue of Him who formed the ear for the perception of melodious sounds, the mouth to otter them, and the heart to receive the impression of sacred and interesting truth! We may judge of it from the mute attention with which he was heard, and from the wonder expressed, after he had finished, “at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.”

It would appear that it was not only “his custom” to attend the synagogue, but to perform the office of public reader to the assembly. For the proper minister delivers to Him, as to the acknowledged conductor of this part of the service, that portion of the Sacred Code which either order prescribed, or which his selection called for, or to which Providence specially directed; and he received it from Him again to be deposited in its place. And whether indeed did Providence, independent of human design or foresight, by a special interposition unfold the particular passage from ancient prophecy; or did his own choice select it as peculiarly applicable to the occasion? In either case, what portion of the Old Testament Scriptures is more emphatically descriptive of his person, character, and divine mission? And what can be so worthy of our most deep and serious attention, whether, we consider the infinite and everlasting moment of the subject, the interest which we have in it, or the affecting correspondence of the event with the prediction, of the prophet with his object. The prophecy holds up to view a person of the most distinguished eminence, consecrated in the most extraordinary manner, to the execution of the most merciful, land benevolent purposes, and in language the most powerful and pathetic. It is the anointed of the Lord God, his Holy One, who alone could without presumption undertake, and triumphantly accomplish, the work of redemption, and could unfold that “great mystery of Godliness” which angels desire to look into: who was set apart from everlasting to this high destination, who was gradually revealed, and in the fulness of time, sent to be the salvation of God to all the ends of the earth. Who was anointed, not as Aaron to the priesthood, and David to the sovereignty, by a material oil of exquisite odor and costly price, but by the effusion of the Spirit, the Spirit of power, of wisdom, of holiness, which rested upon him without measure; and which was bestowed upon him, for what purpose? with Moses to humble the pride, and crush the power of Egypt? or with Cyrus, “to subdue nations, to loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, to make the crooked places straight, to break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron;” to execute the righteous judgment of the Eternal on rebellion, presumption, and disobedience; to condemn and to destroy? No, when this mighty One cometh, armed with power, anointed with the Spirit, it is to dispense grace, to diffuse happiness, to relieve the miserable.

“He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” The poor are, with the great of the earth, the objects of neglect, and contempt, and oppression. In the dictionary of the world, rich means respectable, powerful, and important: and poverty is equivalent to wretchedness, meanness, despicability. But the dispensation of grace by the gospel inverts this order; it affixes a different, indeed an opposite meaning to words, it raises into consequence what was lightly esteemed, and it hurls pride down to the ground. It “puts down the mighty from their seats, and exalteth them of low degree.” Is it poverty of condition? That is no bar against the admission of the consolations of Christianity; that is no disqualification for enjoying the rights of citizenship of the kingdom of heaven; that implies no exclusion from the glorious “privileges of the sons of God;” that implies neither sin nor shame. Is it poverty of spirit? It is the creature’s highest glory; it is the Redeemer’s brightest and most perfect image; it is the soul’s preparation for the kingdom of heaven. To the one and to the other is the anointed of the Lord sent to preach the gospel; to the poor in this world, that they may learn to be sober-minded, patient and content; not envying nor grieving at the good of others, but laying up for themselves “treasures in heaven;” looking for “another country,” for “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God:”--to the poor in spirit, that they may “grow in grace,” that they may “contemplate and follow their pattern more closely, learning of him daily to be “meek and lowly in heart, that they may find rest to their souls.”

“He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted.” Gracious office! divide Physician! Thou only art equal to the task. “The heart knoweth its own bitterness;” the ill admits of no cure; the officious consolation of the creature only irritates the wound; time itself brings no relief. But behold, here, not a temporary relief, but a lasting cure; not the transient spirit and calm of a stupefying opiate, but the solid support of wholesome food, and the refreshing balm of wholesome rest. An ensnaring, persecuting world, mourner in Zion, disturbs thy peace and breaks thy heart; but He hath said “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace.” In the bitterness of thy soul thou criest out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”--Trembling, sinking creature, speak peace to thy soul, “return to thy rest,” “there is no condemnation to them but are in Christ Jesus; it is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” To preach deliverance to the captives. Bondage, slavery, captivity are happily known to us only by the name, or in idea. We are more than Abraham’s children; our father’s contended for liberty, Heaven granted it, and we enjoy it. But ah! our country is but a speck on the globe; our population is but a handful of men. And alas, even in our own country there is captivity. How many among us “wax poor and fall into decay,” and that not from profligacy and prodigality alone? The creditor cometh, and there is nothing to give him. The loss of liberty is the consequence: the evil becomes worse and worse. He who entered within the walls of a prison unfortunate only, continues there under a total incapacity of shaking off calamity. What was at first the pressure of debt, imperceptibly changes into an intolerable load of vice, from which a miracle of grace alone, can deliver. How many thousands of our fellow-subjects are in this unhappy, this almost hopeless condition! But liberty may exist even in a dungeon. If the prisoner carries with him into confinement the “spirit of adoption,” he is already delivered from bondage. No bolts, nor bars, nor fetters of iron can restrain the heaven-born mind; he can look up and “cry, Abba, Father!” “He that is called in the Lord, being a slave, is the Lord’s freeman.” “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Paul in bonds, a prisoner in the cause of Jesus Christ, possesses a nobly free and independent spirit. Galled with “many stripes;” “thrust into the inner prison” at Philippi, with Silas his companion in tribulation “their feet made fast to the stocks,” they enjoy liberty of access to the throne of Grace. “At midnight they prayed, and sang praises unto God.” Thus “the Lord looseth the prisoners,” and thus the Anointed is “sent to preach,” and to give “deliverance to the captives.” But what, in respect either of multitude or of misery, are imprisoned debtors, or even felons lying under the rod of the law, compared to the voluntarily enslaved? “Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.” And what blindness is like willful blindness, and what servitude so hopeless, so inglorious as that into which a man degrades himself? It is some alleviation of the depression of a servile estate, that the master is honorable, and that the service required is neither humiliating nor severe: but O how mortifying the refection of being in subjection to an unfeeling monster, to a capricious tyrant, to a contemptible groundling! And such is every slave to irregular appetite, whether it be “the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life.” Such dream that they are following their own will, but in truth they “are led captive by Satan at his will:” and “the wages of sin is death.” To deliver from this most inglorious, this fatal thralldom, then, is the object of Christ’s mission. What, Britons, glory, and well you may, in your civil liberties! and willingly assume the yoke of a paltry interest, of a groveling propensity which you are ashamed to avow! What, make it your boast that the moment the ill-fated African breathes British air he becomes free; and continue deliberately to “fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind,” which “war against the soul!” Great Deliverer, exert thy power, display thy grace; “open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified.”

“He hath sent me--for the recovering of sight to the blind.” On what numberless, and what delicate binges does human comfort turn! Who can describe “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to?” Were the kindness of Nature or the care of Providence to be suspended but for a day, into what a quarantine hospital for infectious patients would the world be instantly transformed! The defect of a pail of a little finger is a blemish in organization, but a blemish which nature seldom permits; how much less a deficiency of one of the nobler parts, or a disarrangement of the whole system! “But that the works of God should be made manifest,” a “man is blind from his birth;” and another loses “the precious treasure of his eyesight.” Of the two, the latter surely is the greater evil. We cannot regret What we have hardly an idea of, what we, never possessed, and to which we become perfectly reconciled before we are conscious of existence. But to recollect the pleasures of vision after the organ is destroyed; but to be reduced to mourn with the poet in these affecting strains: With the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev’n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine
But cloud instead, and ever during dark
Surrounds me! from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off; and for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature’s works, to me expung’d and ras’d,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out!

Paradise Lost iii. 40, etc. This is “darkness which may be felt.” In representing, accordingly, the deplorable state of the world under the image of blindness, a state of ignorance, guilt, and wretchedness; and in representing the correspondent office and work of the Redeemer, that blindness is not described as an original and radical defect of sight, but as the casual deprivation of a blessing once in possession and he is considered as sent, not to confer a benefit unknown, unenjoyed before, but to restore that which was lost, to illumine the extinguished orb. The truth is men had wilfully shut their eyes, because they could not bear the light. This was the condemnation of the unbelieving Jews, with all their superior advantages: “Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world; that they who see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.” And this was the condemnation of the self-conceited Gentiles, with all their affectation of wisdom “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools:” “they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” They are in another place thus described, and under the same image; “The Gentiles, walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” And this mental darkness is represented as necessarily blended with moral corruption of the grossest kind. Thus are both Jews and Gentiles involved in thick darkness, and both under the dominion of sin; “God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” The promises of Messiah are of equal extent; as “a salvation prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and, the glory of his people Israel.”

“He is sent, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” We have here a representation of human misery in every circumstance of aggravation; poverty, mental depression, captivity, blindness, fetters of iron. There is in this gradation, perhaps, an allusion to the horrid treatment of unhappy prisoners on falling into the hands of their enemies. They were shut up in prison, their eyes were thrust out, they were loaded with chains. Thus was Samson treated, the moment his strength failed, and his cruel adversaries had obtained power over him: “The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison-house.” And the sight of his wretchedness they called sport. In this manner could one king act by another. “So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.” Such are the dreadful abuses which a man commits against his brother! such is the dreadful malignity of the human heart; such the detestable working of “the carnal mind,” which “is enmity against God,” and an unrelenting foe to man! This enumeration of human woes, is equivalent to a declaration, that whatever may be the nature, and whatever the extent of the malady, the promised deliverer should come provided with a suitable remedy. And when he did come, he not only exercised this gracious power himself; for “they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them;” but he communicated the same salutary virtue to his disciples also; “He gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease.” And thus was the Scripture fulfilled. The prophecy contains one important article more The Anointed is sent to preach the accept able year of the Lord. “The law had a shadow of good things to come.” With its severity was blended a powerful infusion of mercy and mildness, the particulars of which had a direct reference to the times and the spirit of the Gospel. Of these, the year of jubilee was one of the most distinguished. It was ushered in with the sound of the trumpet, “proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” On the return of this hallowed fiftieth year, debts were remitted; alienated lands reverted to the original proprietor; the Hebrew bond-servant to a Hebrew, “he and his children with him” were to be set free, and restored to their rank in Israel; the poor Hebrew, who had been reduced to the sad necessity of selling himself as a slave to a stronger, was to be redeemed by his next of kin. In a word, at the expiration of every seven times seven years, all the disorders which had crept into the commonwealth, from the period of the preceding jubilee, were to be rectified, and all reinstated on the original basis. It is easy to conceive how such an era would be looked unto and longed for, what a happy tendency it had to ameliorate the condition of myriads, and to check the progress of oppression. In contemplating it, the Psalmist exclaims: “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound!” It was a figure of that “acceptable year of the Lord” which it was predicted the Messiah should be sent to proclaim, the perpetual jubilee of the Gospel, for the remission of sins; for the restoration of the forfeited inheritance of the saints; for the manumission of the slave; for the redemption of the captive; for releasing and bringing back the exile: in a word, “to destroy the works of the devil,” to repair the ravages of sin and death, to introduce universal and everlasting liberty, and peace, and joy. The sequel of this service of the synagogue, and the effect which it produced, will be the subject of the next Lecture.

Learn, Christian, to compare Scripture with Scripture, and predictions with their corresponding events. Search diligently for him to whom all the prophets give witness, and in whom “all the promises of God are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God.” Much is clearly manifested, and pointedly applied; but much still remains to be brought to light. Truth will not obtrude itself on the careless, superficial reader or observer, but discloses its hidden charms to the diligent, the devout, and the inquisitive. It is the injunction of Christ himself: “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” Search then in this particular view, and you will have to tell to others what Philip said to Nathaniel; “We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth.” “With joy shall ye draw water out of these wells of salvation:” and having tasted how sweet and refreshing it is, you will be disposed to impart it to others, for in this, if in any case, the saying of the wise man is verified: “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth:” and “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”