01.05. Remonstrance
THE QUESTION OF REMONSTRANCE ’Goest Thou thither again?’
John 11:8 The Gospel of John differs from the other three in showing us more of the Jerusalem ministry of Jesus. We could, indeed, infer from them that His relations with the capital had been more serious than appears from the surface of their narratives; the great cry, ’O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not,’ is of itself sufficient to prove this. But the Gospel of John might almost be read as an illustration of this text. It exhibits the repeated efforts of Jesus to win the Jews, and the steadily growing antipathy with which these efforts were repelled. In John 1:1-25, at His first appearance, we are told that He did not trust Himself to them, knowing what was in man. At His next visit the Jews seek to kill Him, because He breaks the Sabbath and makes Himself equal with God. A little later the rulers send officers to apprehend Him; later still, the people take up stones to stone Him even in the temple courts. A renewal of this murderous assault compelled Him to seek refuge beyond Jordan, and it was there, apparently, that the message came to Him from Martha and Mary: ’Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.’ Perhaps the two days that He remained in Persea encouraged the Twelve to think that He was now beginning to take care of Himself, and their amazement was all the greater when He said, ’Let us go into Judaea again.’ It was putting His head into the lion’s mouth, and they felt He might do it once too often. As Peter had done before at Caesarea Philippi — though the precedent was not auspicious — they ventured to remonstrate. ’Master, the Jews even now were seeking to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again?’ The answer of Jesus is striking. ’Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.’
Practically the disciples had accused Jesus of recklessly shortening His life, and the answer signifies that the life which is spent in doing the will of God is always long enough. ’Are there not twelve hours in the day ? ’ — a long, ample, gracious, liberal space of light to fill with work. Jesus does speak elsewhere of the shortness of time and the urgency of duty: ’We must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work.’ With this idea we are familiar, but we need to habituate our minds to the complementary one, that for the faithful servant of God there is plenty of time, and no risk of life coming to a premature end. If we only did at each moment the duty which the Father has assigned to it, we should never be hurried nor confused; night would not overtake us; we should not stumble like the man who has to continue his journey in the dark; the true light would shine upon us till our day’s work was done. And whether the life thus lived was short or long measured by human standards, it would be all that it need be to one who could say at last, ’I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.’ For work, not time, is the measure of life. The remonstrating question of the disciples is silenced therefore by a great confession of faith in God. ’My times are in Thy hand ’: so we read in Psa 31:1-24, a psalm used by Jesus on the cross ; and close by the words we read again, ’Fear was on every side; while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. But I trusted in Thee, O Lord ; I said. Thou art my God.’ One can hardly help thinking that the Psalm was in the Saviour’s mind as He rebuked the timidity of His followers, and bade them remember the ever - present providence of the Father. Jesus is the author and finisher of faith in this providence, the Pattern of a trust in God so perfect that it leaves to Him without misgiving all that disquiets common men. It is God who fixes the length of our day. No enemy can reduce the twelve hours to ten or eleven, and no anxiety or evasion of our own could stretch them to thirteen or fourteen. Such faith is not fatalism — a stony acquiescence in whatever happens, as inevitably fixed by chance or by necessity; it is the loving acceptance of a Father’s will, which we believe and know is seeking our good. It is this which gives serenity to life even when it is encompassed with peril. It is this which secures sunshine all through the hours in which our work is to be done. Every bitter word His enemies spoke against Jesus, as He hung on the cross, turned to His praise, but none more gloriously than this — He trusted in God. And of all happy expressions of His trust, there is none happier than this, when as He set His face for the last time to go to the city that killed the prophets, He said to His trembling followers, ’Are there not twelve hours in the day? ’
Faith is the root of all the Christian virtues, and our Lord on this occasion, in contrast with His disciples, eminently illustrates two of these. The first is courage. Jesus knew that He was going into danger; He foresaw, as the disciples did not, not merely the risk but the certainty of an ignominious and painful death. But He did not weigh His life against the Father’s will, which called Him to Bethany. He counted not His life dear to Him that He might finish His course and the ministry He had received.
Courage is the most elementary of virtues, and perhaps there are few who are incapable of acquiring it in some degree. Soldiers acquire it in the simplest form, and it is readiness to surrender life at the call of duty that makes the soldier’s profession not merely lawful, but great. Physicians and nurses, who have to do with infectious diseases, acquire it almost as simply and inevitably as soldiers. After all precautions, it remains for them to take their life in their hands; and the thousands who do so and would rather die themselves than leave the sick unattended are practicing a Christian virtue. But it is Christian in a pre-eminent sense when it is practiced in the interest of men’s souls. The annals of missionary enterprise abound with examples of that very spirit which Jesus here seeks to infuse into His disciples. The men who have planted Christian churches along six hundred miles of the coast of New Guinea, among tribes whose sole trade had been to barter sago for earthenware pots in which to cook man, are illustrations of it. So are the men who have laid the foundations of the Church in the unhealthy regions of Western and Central Africa, and in many of the Pacific islands. But is their courage always appreciated? ’ What!’, do we not hear people say. ’ Are you going to carry the gospel to the Congo? Do you not know that the Congo is worse than Sierra Leone, which used to be called the White Man’s Grave? How many people have died there already! Are you going there again?’ By the inspiration of Christ men and women have been found to answer: ’Yes, we are going again. What is life for, but to be used in His service? We are ready to die, and to die on the Congo, far from help and friends, for the name of the Lord Jesus.’
These are exceptional or rather signal cases of courage; for virtue excepts no man from her claims. A Christian who has not this courage, in the measure in which his circumstances require it, is a contradiction in terms. When the Book of Revelation enumerates those who are shut out of the New Jerusalem, the very first title in the list is ’the fearful,’ — that is, the cowards, who can brave nothing for Christ’s sake. Whoever gets into heaven, they do not. Few people would plead guilty to cowardice in general, but how many have actually exposed themselves in the Christian Service — not to death, which is not an every-day affair, but to an uncivil word, a rebuff, an impertinent laugh, the pity of superior persons? Why are we not more visibly, more decidedly, Christian? Why do you not remonstrate with that man, who is your friend, and who is going wrong? Why do you not protest against the tone of conversation in that company which you frequent? Why do you not go on that errand, though you know it will be thankless, and may very likely provoke the coolness, the rudeness, or the contempt of others? Why do you not ’stand in jeopardy every hour’? Is it because you are afraid? Remember that cowardice is as incompatible with any Christian as with any natural virtue; and that if anything is alien to Christ it is this. He did not weigh life itself against duty: how can we follow Him if we are always balancing our own convenience, or rather our own indulgent selfishness, against the claims of God? The other virtue conspicuous in our Lord’s conduct on this occasion is patience. He was going back to Judaea, not merely for the sake of Lazarus, but for the sake of the Jews. In raising His friend to life again. He was making a last and supreme appeal to their unbelief. Again and again He had tried to win them already, and had been steadily repulsed: what was the good of trying further? So men might have argued, but Jesus did not. It was written of Him long before, ’ He shall not fail nor be discouraged,’ and the prophecy was illustrated when He resolved to give the Jews one opportunity more. The Apostle understood this when he wrote, ’ The longsuffering of our Lord is Salvation.’ Is it not amazing, when we think upon it, the number of chances which God’s patience gives to men? The number of times He visits us, hoping to find a kinder welcome than He has yet done? Every morning as His sun shines upon us; every Sabbath as it speaks of His work as our Creator and Redeemer; every incident that breaks the thoughtless monotony of life and makes us feel beneath the surface; every word of God that leaps out on us from the Bible; every gospel sermon to which we listen — in all these Christ comes and comes and comes again. How often has He come to us? What does He come for? What reception does He get? If there were an angel standing by and looking on, might He not ask in amazement, as the disciples did on this occasion, ’Lord, goest Thou thither again? That man, who has heard Thy voice every day, and still loves the world, and will not follow Thee: that man who calls himself by Thy name, and affects reverence for the gospel, and defends the truth, but who is a cold - blooded, self- complacent Pharisee: that man, whose conscience has been touched, now more and now less keenly, any time these twenty or thirty years past, but who remains a coward, a sensualist, a slanderer, a thinker of low thoughts: Goest Thou to him again? ’ Yes, Jesus goes to him again. The grace of our Lord is exceeding abundant. He comes to us once more, this very moment; and if we remember how we have turned Him away already, and sulked, and made excuses, and stifled the heavenly voice, and counted the cost and found it too high, let the remembrance of these things humble us that His patient love may prevail at last. Remember that His longsuffering is salvation.
It is not only salvation, but a pattern and an inspiration for all Christian service. The most earnest are apt sometimes to fail and be discouraged, and they need to remind themselves that Jesus resisted such temptations. The Church becomes disheartened with great problems, like the maintenance of the Christian standard among its members, the defence of Christian truth, or the propagation of the gospel among the heathen; and when it is disheartened, it relaxes its efforts. Missionary operations are curtailed, and there is a weary acquiescence in what we know is not the best. It is the same with individuals. How many Sunday school teachers have resigned their classes, because the boys and girls were irresponsive, or less? How many men have tried to save a comrade as he sank through the first stages of drunkenness, but when their efforts were repulsed resigned themselves not even to try any more to do him good? How many are so wounded in what they call their self-respect, but what is really their pride, by the first rebuff, or the first symptom of defective appreciation, that they wash their hands of all responsibility to others, and retire to keep a selfish state? If we call ourselves Christians, let us imitate Jesus. What if we are not appreciated: was He appreciated? What if we meet with ingratitude: were the Jews grateful to Him? Let us remember that the disciple is not above his Master, and go again and again and again — as He went to the Jews and as He has come to us — to the most inappreciative, the most thankless, the most irresponsive of men. Let us go in His spirit, brave and patient, and so full of love that no other motive can have place in our minds. Let us go with His words in our ears: ’O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee!’ Let His longsuffering, which is salvation, have its perfect work in us. And then the faith in God from which these graces spring will be confirmed by them, and through all dangers and discouragements we shall walk in the light with Him and not stumble.