2.01.06. The food that Jesus loved and lived on
VI. THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON.
“Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” — John 4:34.
CERTAIN woman who lived in the Samaritan town of Sychar went out one day at noon to the well for water. Although the path between the town and the well was trodden by multitudes every day, the woman on this occasion had it all to herself. She seems to have had nobody in her company, and to have met nobody by the way. All the well-ordered households had laid in their supply of water early in the morning, or late in the evening of the previous day; for none who can otherwise arrange their plans will bear a burden through an unsheltered plain when the Syrian sun is high. Matters were not well arranged in this woman’s house: she led an irregular life in a disreputable home. On this account, probably, she came to the well at noon. Had she been ready when her neighbours came, she would have missed the living water. How deep are God’s purposes both in creation and providence, and how exactly wheel fits into wheel as the vast machinery moves majestically round! It is intimated at the beginning of the chapter that Jesus must needs go through Samaria. The necessity for taking this route lay deeper than the geography of Palestine. In the counsels of Eternal Mercy he must needs go through Samaria, that he might meet a sinner there; and she must needs go out to the well at noon, because only at that hour could she find on the well’s brink the Saviour of her soul. As she approaches the well-known spot, alike venerated for its hallowed associations and valued for its continued usefulness, she espies a way-worn stranger resting on the stones at the well’s mouth. Either suspecting him to be a Jew, and therefore avoiding intercourse, or bent only on her own errand without regarding his presence, she proceeded in the usual way to let down her bucket and to draw it up full from the cool depths. Ere she had time to transfer her treasure to her shoulder, in order to bear it to her home, the weary stranger accosted her with a simple request for a drink of water. Now that the ice was broken, and the intercourse begun, she enters freely into conversation; and, as the subject that came easiest to hand, plunged into the feud between Jews and Samaritans. So far from replying to her argument, the Lord instantly glided from the water with which he was refreshing his own parched lips, to the water which would be the life of her soul.
He has requested the woman to give him drink. He has applied his parched lips to the vessel which she presents, and, perhaps in the pauses of his panting draughts, looking into her careworn, uneasy countenance, he mysteriously says, “ I will give thee living. water.” At a later stage of this episode the disciples, having brought some food from a shop in the town and oflFered it to their master, knowing that he must by this time be hungry, are surprised when he declines their offer. To account for his unexpected abstinence, they suggest the thought that some person during their absence might have given him food. Gliding off that common theme, What shall I eat? — rising and lifting them with himself up from earth to heaven, he replied, “ My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”
Consider Messiah’s ministry of salvation, first, simply as a work which he performed; and next, as the food in which he delighted I. His work: — “ To do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”
He speaks here in his capacity of Son and servant. He has been sent to execute the Father’s wilL In his essential nature he is one with the Father, and the purpose of redeeming lost men is his own as well as the Father’s; but here the Son speaks in accordance with his place as Mediator. From Father, Son, and Spirit, the one purpose issued; and to Father, Son, and Spirit, will the glory return, when many sons are brought into glory; but in the actual execution of the divine purpose, and dining the currency of redemption, the Son of God, the Saviour, stands in a low place, and speaks as a servant charged with a specific mission, and engaged in performing a specific work.
He is doing the will of the Father that sent him. What is the will — the desire of the Sender? You may learn it best by looking to the Sent. Look unto Jesus, if you would know the mind of God. He meant not evil to a fallen world when he sent his Son to dwell amongst us clothed in our nature. The Gift reveals the Giver’s heart Well may we take up the bright, blessed argument of Manoah’s wife, as we meditate on the incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection of our Lord — well may we adopt faith’s strong argument, “ If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have shown us such things as these.” Jesus himself has said, “ No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” The Christ sent into the world is fitted to draw men to God, not to drive them away. The will of the Father toward the world corresponds with the Messenger who has been sent to accomplish it.
God is love; and Christ came to embody divine love in the actual redemption of the lost. Oh, when will the thought spring up in the heart of a prodigal race, “ I will arise, and go to my Father”? By the gift of the Son the Father has revealed his own heart; and they are without excuse who still count him hard, and keep at a distance.
“To do the will of him that sent me:” the desire of God could not be carried into effect without Christ sent, the Saviour. As God made the world by his Word, he makes the world anew by the Word made flesh, and dwelling amongst us. The incarnation and dying of the Lord Jesus became the accomplishment of the Father’s merciful design.
Intention was turned into fact. How precious are God’s thoughts towards us! But his thoughts found body in Christ crucified. Here lies the power to carry into effect the love that lay in the eternal covenant.
“And to finish his work.” The work is not left half done. His work is perfect. Creation was completed ere God gave over his work and rested. It was all very good ere it left his hands. His next and more glorious work will be finished too. There will be no patches added after the children assemble in the Father’s house. This earth was complete as a habitation for humanity, here the children were brought to it as their home. The mountains were all raised up, and the rivers all flowing in the valleys, and the sea confined within its capacious basin, and the air mixed and made up, suitable as breath for living creatures, clasping the globe round all its circumference. Then, and not sooner, did God make man in his own image. The home of the holy will be perfect when its inmates enter. All things are ready ere the message is sent round to bid the guests assemble. God’s works are all finished works. At the time that Jesus talked with the woman and with his disciples at Jacob’s well, the work which he had undertaken was not finished. The agony in the garden lay before him, and lay full in view; the hiding of the Father’s face, the cup of wrath; all the bearing for his people’s sin, and the Father’s righteousness, lay before him. This baptism he must yet be baptized with, and he was straitened till it should be accomplished. He hastened to the end. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame.
II. His food: — To do the Father’s will and finish his work, he counted his bread.
It is not enough to learn from the evangelic histories what Jesus did and suffered. It is not enough to examine his acts; we must look, as far as the Scriptures present an opening, into the secret motives that wrought in his heart. At Jacob’s well he was carrying forward his great mission as the Saviour of lost men: the twelve looked on, but they looked on as little children look on their father while he is preparing to accomplish some great work of skill. They saw each separate movement, but they could not comprehend the design. Not understanding the whole, they were baffled by the sight of the separate parts. “ They marvelled that he talked with the woman.”
Knowing full well all that the redemption of his people would bring upon himself, he longed for the work as for his daily bread. It is my meat to do his will, and finish his work. This word we can in some measure understand; for we know what the pain of hunger is, and what the delight of satisfying hunger with convenient food. I can in some measure comprehend the desire that burned in the breast of Jesus that day at Jacob’s well; for I have been hungry, and when hungry have been satisfied with bread. In this glass I can see reflected the nature and intensity of the Saviour’s eagerness to save. On one occasion Jeremiah was commanded to go down to the potter’s house, that he might there receive a message from the Lord; and the prophet soon learned the reason why the message was not communicated to him in his own house. It regarded the sovereignty of God in appointing the lot of his creatures, and Jeremiah could more easily understand the lesson while he stood by the potter’s wheel, and saw him making from one piece of clay a vessel unto honour and a vessel unto dishonour. Some lessons which God gives us can be more fully taken up in one position than in another. Some texts of Scripture may be most profitably read in a dark night, some beside a stormy sea, and some at the brink of an open grave. You can enter into the spirit of some texts more easily when you are young, and of others when you are old, — of some while you are joyful, and of others when you weep. Methinks this word of the Lord should be thought of when we are hungry, and anticipating the pleasure of enjoying our food.
Like hunger was Christ’s appetite for saving work — like the satisfying of hunger is his joy when he is winning souls. What an agony is unappeased hunger! What contrivances will you adopt, what efforts will you make, what pain endure, i]\ order to obtain bread! “ Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life;” and food is life — the want of it death. A traveller lost his way in an Eastern desert. His provisions were exhausted, and he had already wandered about for several days without food, when he described under a palm-tree on his track the marks of a recent encampment.
He approached the spot tremulous with hope. He found a bag which the travellers had left behind, filled with something that appeared to be dates. He opened it eagerly, expecting to satisfy his hunger, when lo, it contained only pearls I He sat down and wept. What are pearls to a man who is dying for want of bread?
Jesus is Lord of all. Those glorious stars that stud the heavens are all his. They are the jewels which belong to his crown. He values them; but they do not satisfy his soul. To Christ, these shining orbs are like the pearls to the fainting traveller in the desert. They are precious and pure, but he cannot live on them. Christ does not need to redeem those bright worlds and those unfallen angels, and they cannot therefore satisfy his appetite. To seek the strayed; to redeem the lost; to renew the fallen; to lay down his life for them, — this is his meat: and for this food he must pass those shining worlds. He must leave them, like the ninety-nine unstrayed sheep upon the mountain pastures, and go after the lost one, that when he gets it on his shoulders he may rejoice, with a joy inspeakable and full of glory.
“ Blessed are they that hunger; for they shall be filled.” This he said: this he felt. He experiences the truth of this saying to-day in the midst of the throne, while ten thousand times ten thousand of the saved are ministering before him. That fainting, hungry traveller by Jacob’s well, obtained a foretaste of his joy when the Samaritan woman received life from his hands; and his joy will be full when all the ransomed shall rise and reign with him upon his throne.
Behold the man, fainting, hungry, under a midday sun at Jacob’s well! Behold the man, crowned with thorns and mocked at Jerusalem! Behold the man, as he bows his head upon the cross, — what has brought him to this? His appetite: it is that hunger for the doing of his Father’s loving will, and the finishing of his Father’s mighty work.
It was his unquenchable appetite for saving, as for the bread of his life, that brought him to a fallen world, and left him under the curse that was due to sin. This appetite burned in hij breast like fire. With this appetite unsatisfied, he would have counted heaven unhappy. Under the control of his own divine love, he left his throne, took upon himself the form of a servant, and suffered unto death, that he might feast upon the work of winning souls. The same feature of his character appeared when he stood on the Mount of Olives, and wept over Jerusalem.
Son of God, why weepest thou? He weeps for hunger.
He is like a hungry man in sight of food, but not within reach of it. It is in such a case that hunger gnaws like a worm in the breast. Oh, how he loves!
How deeply and how persistently do the guilty misinterpret and misrepresent the heart of Christ! Men take the devils’ opinion of him, “Art thou come to torment us?” instead of the view which the true One gives of himself.
It is difficult for us to take in the conception of Christ’s passionate desire to save, and yet retain a due sense of his omnipotence as God. We are apt to think that in such a case his power might have been put forth, as the immediate instrument of accomplishing all his desire. Might not the Almighty Deliverer have made short work with the saving of Jerusalem that day? Might he not have seized a whole cityful, as the angels seized Lot by the hand, and hurried them up to heaven? But this would not satisfy his soul; this is not food convenient for him. It is not pure. It was a gross and carnal conception that the prosperous man entertained, when he tried to feed his soul with the goods that he had laid up in a barn. Material acquisitions cannot satisfy and sustain spirit. Though the Lord Jesus has all power committed to him in heaven and in earth, he will not command stones to be made bread by a miracle to satisfy his hunger; neither will he lift a multitude to heaven by mere omnipotence.
They who are drawn up to him for the satisfying of his soul, rise as the clouds rise from the sea, spontaneous and pure. Nothing shall enter that defileth. He hungers, and saving work is his food; but as with his servant Peter so with the Master himself, — nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered his lips.
He must needs go through Samaria, not only because that province lay in his way, but because he was hungry, and in poor half-heathen Samaria lay the savoury meat which his soul loved. In the same manner he must needs pass through our nature and our world, as he goes from the glory of the eternity past to the glory of the eternity to come. It was not any physical necessity; for the Maker of all worlds might have found another path from glory to glory without visiting this shooting star. But he must needs pass through the abode of fallen humanity on his way to the throne of the kingdom, because he longed to save the lost with a longing like hunger, and here only could be found the food that would satisfy his soul. His own sovereign love laid the necessity upon himself. The sun, his creature, is under an inherent necessity of giving out light; so Christ, the light of the world, must needs give out the light of life, and therefore he casts himself in the way of a dark world, as the hungry seeks food and the thirsty makes his way towards water-springs. The Ethiopian found Christ in the desert, and went on his way rejoicing; but also Christ found the Ethiopian in the desert, and went on his way rejoicing that he had tasted his sweetest food.
Within the limits prescribed by our capacity and our condition, the appetite of the Master may be experienced by the servants too, and they after their own way may be satisfied with the food that he loved so well. Our spiritual hunger is first a desire to get and then a desire to give salvation. It is in the second part of the process that the disciple enters in some measure into the joy of his Lord.
Out of his own fulness the Lord gives. At first we are empty; but when we have obtained mercy, we shall experience a desire like an appetite to publish it. Oh that we were inoculated with that appetite for doing good that burned in the breast of the man Christ Jesus! We try to do some good, and then we slacken and leave oft. When some providential call awakens us, we start into activity again for a season. This is not the way to work deliverance in the earth. The work is not effectually done unless we do it as the Master did it. When saving work is our meat, and idleness gnaws like the pain of hunger, we shall be sent unto our task and kept at it. An appetite is the unslumbering, faithful, effective task-master appointed by our Creator, in the material department, to see that we take our necessary food. When a task-master of the same order keeps our spirits on the stretch for saving work, the work will be vigorously prosecuted, and we shall never be long out of employment.