21 The Son of Man Hath Not Where to Lay His Head
XXI THE SON OF MAN HATH NOT WHERE TO
LAY HIS HEAD
Thou shalt leave each thing Belov’d most dearly; this is the first shaft Shot from the bow of exile. Thou shalt prove How salt the savoir is of others’ bread, How hard the passage to descend and climb By others’ stairs. But what shall gall thee most Will be the worthless and vile company With whom thou must be thrown into these straits. For all ungrateful, impious all, and mad, Shall turn against thee; but in a little while Theirs and not thine shall be the crimson’d brow.
Without the change of one single syllable that might have been the aged Simeon’s prophecy when he came by the Spirit into the temple and took the Child Jesus up in his arms. For the very first shaft that was shot into our Savior’s soul was His utter loneliness, even in His mother’s house. With all that had gone before His birth, and with all that had followed after His birth; with His sweet and winning nature, and with His growingly gracious character, whatever might be ordained Him of salt bread to eat, and of steep stairs to climb elsewhere, you would have said that He would always have had where to lay His head as long as His mother had a house of her own. But no. There was no bread He ate anywhere that was so salt to His taste as was the bread that our Lord both earned and ate in His mother’s house. And there were no stairs in all the land so steep to His feet as were just those stairs that He climbed every day in the society of James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas, His four brothers. With all its reverent reserve Holy Scripture does not wholly hide from us the long years of secret suffering that our Lord must have passed through before He left His mother’s house. Nor are we allowed to shut our eyes to the continual heartbreaks that He was still suffering at the hands of His mother’s sons long after He had left His mother’s house for ever. "For," we read, "neither did His brethren believe in Him." And then there is this astounding statement, that they actually on one occasion "went out to lay hands on Him, for they said, He is beside Himself." It does not demand much imagination to see what a bitter cross our Lord had to bear as long as He lived in His mother’s house, as well as all His after days, because of her house. But all He ever let pass His lips about His lifelong crucifixion at home, is veiled and softened into this proverb that He here lets fall for the warning and for the encouragement of all His disciples to the end of time: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.
You understand why it was that our Lord was so lonely all the time He was in this world? Had our Lord been like all other men He would have had where to lay His head like all other men. Had He remained on a village carpenter, and an ordinary townsman of Nazareth, He would have come in due time to have had a house of His own like all the other men of His city. But it was because He was not as all other men are that He had not the companionships and the relationships and the home affections that all other young men look forward to have. He was alone, and of the people there was none with Him. He was the Christ of God, and it was on that account that He was so sequestered and separated into an aloneness all His own. He had a life foreordained Him to live, and a death foreordained Him to die, that all made Him such a stranger on the earth, and even in His own mother’s house. The marriage of the Lamb was never to be celebrated in this world. Am I not more to Thee, said His Father to Him, than the love of women? Am not I more to Thee, than sons and daughters? Say not, said His Father to Him; say not I am a dry tree. For I will give Thee in Mine house, and within My walls, a place and a name better than of sons and daughters. I will give Thee an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. But with all that to console Him and to comfort Him, our Lord had His own seasons of terrible loneliness. He said that He had not where to lay His head; but, all the time, He meant His heart. With His Father’s love and all, at the same time, He hungered and thirsted, as much as any of ourselves, for the love and the confidence of those around Him. All His life He went about looking for nothing so much as for faith and for love. And as often as He found a little faith and a little love He drank again of the brook by the way, and again lifted up His head. And it was out of the number of those men who a little believed on Him, and a little loved Him, that He chose twelve in order that they might be with Him, as the Gospels have it, and that He might not be wholly and always alone. But He was bitterly disappointed in His expectation of sympathy and love and loyalty from the twelve. For, as it again and again turned out, He was never so lonely and so desolate as just when He was surrounded by His so-called disciples. Instead of relieving his loneliness with their appreciation and their affection, the twelve rather increased His ’sense of loneliness and desolation, till we hear His broken heart bursting out: How long shall I be with you! How long shall I have to bear with you! And even in Martha’s hospitable house, where there was always water for His feet and a pillow for His head, we see how she pained His heart, till He had to remonstrate with her and reprove her. And when a never-to-be-forgotten penitent poured a box of precious ointment on His head in token of her thankfulness and her love, the treatment she received from His disciples stabbed His heart far sorer than did the soldier’s spear the day after. And then the day after, His life-long loneliness came to a head, and could no further go, till He cried out in His absolute abandonment--My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me! Both heaven and earth, both God and man, combined to forsake our Savior that dreadful day.
Another experimental and autobiographic proverb of our Lord’s was this: "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house." Now, if ever there was a prophet without honor in his own house, our Lord was that prophet. More than once our Lord’s heart was chilled and His tongue paralyzed at the approach of His mother and her four sons to where He was preaching. And as He was, so have His servants not seldom been in this same matter. Some of our greatest preachers have left it on record that their power would sometimes entirely go from them at the sight of those whose presence should have been their best support, till they exclaimed, almost in their Master’s very words, as they stretched forth their hands to their believing hearers,--the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. Able preachers have been known to die for want of those words and looks of recognition and appreciation which are so sweet and so strengthening when spoken at home. A great preacher confided to me but the other day that he always did his best work in the pulpit when his own household was not in the audience. But he had no sooner said that than it was immediately given to me to make this answer to his sad complaint. It is enough that the disciple be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord.
Now I feel quite sure that some of you are saying to yourselves that if you had been a householder in Galilee or in Jewry your Savior would not have needed to repeat His proverbs about birds, and foxes, and homeless prophets, at any rate in your town. He would not have lacked where to lay His head as long as you had a house to call your own. And I fully believe you; but, at the same time, you must clearly understand Him, and must in nothing mistake Him. You must distinctly understand that it was not His head that was without a pillow so much as His heart. I do not suppose that our Lord, at His worst, had often to sleep in the open air and on the bare ground. But, for all that, He was in reality as lonely and as homeless as His plainest-spoken proverb said He was. Take His proverb home to yourself. You never wanted a table to eat at, or a bed to sleep on. But you know only too well what it is to be very lonely and neglected at a crowded table, and very desolate in a luxuriously furnished apartment. And what He really complained about in Israel, and still complains about among us, is the very few who, with any warmth, entertain His truth in their mind and Himself in their heart. The Lord of glory does not any more hunger and thirst for your meat and your drink. But He hungers and thirsts more than ever for your faith and for your love. He is such that He will never be satisfied short of your whole faith, and your whole love; your whole mind, and your whole heart. Now, with all your willingness to put Him up in your house, how does it stand with your mind and your heart? How are you entertaining His message in your mind and in your heart at this moment? How have you heard and received His truth, and Himself in His truth, all this day? It was His hearers who so distressed Him at one time and so cheered Him at another time when He was going about preaching on earth. When His disciples pressed Him to eat at the well of Sychar, they found to their amazement that He had wholly forgotten His hunger and His weariness in His absorption in His sermon to that eagerly-listening woman. Take heed, then, how you hear in this and in every such house of His. For in your right hearing of His message to you about your sin and His salvation He still feels as if He were being feasted by you.
“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head. Open to Me, for My head is filled with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Let it be to-night. Determine, where you sit, that it will be to-night. Go home, shut yourself in, sit down to think, and to meditate, and to read that which will assist your thoughts about Him, and your meditations on Him. Read and think till you fall on your knees. Remain on your knees till you feel sure that you have had an audience. Persevere in prayer till the Divine Presence overshadows you. Continue in prayer and in tears, if they are given you, till a peace that passes all understanding tills your heart. And repeat this experience Sabbath night after Sabbath night, ay, and week night after week night, till it becomes a habit with you, and till it is as true of you as it was of the psalmist: "When I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches: My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness: and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips." It is to such an experience that your Savior points when He says: "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." At the same time, in your most spiritual and experimental and evangelical interpretation of your Lord’s homeless proverbs, do not overlook their most direct and their most immediate interpretation and intent. And especially this application and intent: "He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me." Spiritual applications and all--there is no mistaking the plain and practical intention of our Lord in saying that. Well, then, how do you stand to that? Have you an hospitable table toward those whom He sends to be received by you as if they were Himself? There are certain houses in the congregation, and in the city, well known to me, that are never without some invalidated missionary or some homeless evangelist. When we want to know the whereabouts of any such we always send to those houses to inquire. Now, how does it stand with your house in that matter? When you are summoned to deliver up your keys to Christ, and to render your account of them to Him, what will He have to say to you, and you to Him, about them? Be as spiritual and as evangelical as you like in your interpretation and application of His proverbs, but at the same time keep you an open door and a full table for those who come to your door in your Master’s name, and on your Master’s errands. Come, ye blessed of My Father. For I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in; naked, and ye clothed Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. For inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Come, ye blessed of My Father!