Personal Friendships of Jesus Part 10

"Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear from himself and know what he doeth?"

It was only a plea for fairness and for justice; but it showed the working of a heart that would be true to itself, in some measure at least, in spite of its shyness and shrinking, and in spite of the peril of the hour. The question at first excited anger and contempt against Nicodemus himself; but it checked the gathering tides of violence, probably preventing a public outbreak.

We may note progress in the friends.h.i.+p of this secret disciple. During the two years since he first came to Jesus by night the seed dropped into his heart that night had been growing silently. Nicodemus was not yet ready to come out boldly as a disciple of Jesus; but he proved himself the friend of Jesus, even by the few words he spoke in the council when it required firm courage to speak at all. "He who at the first could come to Jesus only by night, now stands by him in open day, and in the face of the most formidable opposition, before which the courage of the strongest might have quailed."

It is beautiful to see young Christians, as the days pa.s.s, growing more and more confident and heroic in their confession of Christ. At first they are shy, retiring, timid, and disposed to shrink from public revealing of themselves. But if, as they receive more of the Spirit of G.o.d in their heart, they grow more courageous in speaking for Christ and in showing their colors, they prove that they are true disciples, learners, growing in grace.

The only other mention of Nicodemus is some months after the heroic word spoken in the council. What has been going on in his experience, meanwhile, we do not know. There is no evidence that he has yet declared himself a follower of Jesus. He is still a secret disciple.

But the hidden life in his heart has still been growing.

One day a terrible thing happened. Jesus was crucified. In their fright and panic all his friends at first forsook him, some of them, however, gathering back, with broken hearts, and standing about his cross. But never was there a more hopeless company of men in this world than the disciples of Jesus that Good Friday, when their Master hung upon the cross. They did not understand the meaning of the cross as we do to-day,--they thought it meant defeat for all the hopes they had cherished. They stood round the cross in the despair of hopeless grief.

They were also powerless to do anything to show their love, or to honor the body of their Friend. They were poor and unknown men, without influence. None of them had a grave in which the body could be laid.

Nor had they power to get leave to take the body away; it required a name of influence to get this permission. Their love was equal to anything, but they were helpless. In the dishonor of that day all the friends of Jesus shared.

What could be done? Soon the three bodies on the crosses would be taken down by rude hands of heartless men, and cast into the Potter's Field in an indistinguishable heap.

No; there is a friend at Pilate's door. He is a man of rank among the Jews--a rich man too. He makes a strange request,--he asks leave to take the body of Jesus away for burial. Doubtless Pilate was surprised that a member of the court which had condemned Jesus should now desire to honor his body, but he granted the request; perhaps he was glad thus to end a case which had cost him so much trouble. Joseph took charge of the burial of the body of Jesus.

Then came another rich man and joined Joseph. "There came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury." It certainly is remarkable that the two men who thus met in honoring the body of Jesus had both been his secret disciples, hidden friends, who until now had not had courage to avow their friends.h.i.+p and disciples.h.i.+p.

No doubt there were many other secret friends of Jesus who during his life did not publicly confess him. The great harvest of the day of Pentecost brought out many of these for the first time. No doubt there always are many who love Christ, believe on him, and are following him in secret. They come to Jesus by night. They creep to his feet when no eye is looking at them. They cannot brave the gaze of their fellowmen. They are shy and timid. We may not say one harsh word regarding such disciples. The Master said not one word implying blame of his secret disciples.

Yet it cannot be doubted that secret disciples.h.i.+p is incomplete. It is not just to Christ himself that we should receive the blessings of his love and grace, and not speak of him to the world. We owe it to him who gave himself for us to speak his name wherever we go, and to honor him in every way. Secret disciples.h.i.+p does not fulfil love's duty to the world. If we have found that which has blessed us richly, we owe it to others to tell them about it. To hide away in our own heart the knowledge of Christ is to rob those who do not know of him. It is the worst selfishness to be willing to be saved alone. Further, secret disciples.h.i.+p misses the fulness of blessing which comes to him who confesses Christ before men. It is he who believes with his heart and confesses with his mouth, who has promise of salvation. Confession is half of faith. Secret disciples.h.i.+p is repressed, restrained, confined, and is therefore hampered, hindered, stunted disciples.h.i.+p. It never can grow into the best possible strength and richness of life. It is only when one stands before the world in perfect freedom, with nothing to conceal, that one grows into the fullest, loveliest Christlikeness.

To have the friends.h.i.+p of Christ, and to hide it from men is to lose its blessing out of our own heart.

"To lie by the river of life and see it run to waste, To eat of the tree of heaven while the nations go unfed, To taste the full salvation--the only one to taste-- To live while the rest are lost--oh, better by far be dead!

For to share is the bliss of heaven, as it is the joy of earth; And the unshared bread lacks savor, and the wine unshared, lacks zest; And the joy of the soul redeemed would be little, little worth If, content with its own security, it could forget the rest."

In the case of Nicodemus and Joseph, Jesus was very gentle with timidity; but under the nurture of his gentleness timidity grew into n.o.ble courage. Yet, beautiful as was their deed that day, who will not say that it came too late for fullest honoring of the Master? It would have been better if they had shown their friends.h.i.+p while he was living, to have cheered him by their love. Mary's ointment poured upon the tired feet of Jesus before his death was better than the spices of Nicodemus piled about his body in the grave.

CHAPTER XIII.

JESUS' FAREWELL TO HIS FRIENDS.

"What meaneth it that we should weep More for our joys than for our fears,-- That we should sometimes smile at grief, And look at pleasure's show through tears?

Alas! but homesick children we, Who would, but cannot, play the while We dream of n.o.bler heritage, Our Father's house, our Father's smile."

At last the end came. The end comes for every earthly friends.h.i.+p. The sweetest life together of loved ones must have its last walk, its last talk, its last hand-clasp, when one goes, and the other stays. One of every two friends must stand by the other's grave, and drop tears all the hotter because they are shed alone.

The friends.h.i.+p of Jesus with his disciples was very sweet; it was the sweetest friends.h.i.+p this world ever knew, for never was there any other heart with such capacity for loving and for kindling love as the heart of Jesus. But even this holy friends.h.i.+p in its earthly duration was but for a time. Jesus' hour came at last. To-morrow he was going back to his Father.

Very tender was the farewell. The place chosen for it was the upper room--almost certainly in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark.

So full is the narrative of the evangelists that we can follow it through its minutest details. In the afternoon two of the closest friends of Jesus came quietly into the city from Bethany to find a room, and prepare for the Pa.s.sover. All was done with the utmost secrecy. No inquiry was made for a room; but a man appeared at a certain point, bearing a pitcher of water,--a most unusual occurrence,--and the messengers silently followed him, and thus were led to the house in which was the guest-chamber which Jesus and his friends were to use. There the two disciples made the preparations necessary for the Pa.s.sover.

Toward the evening Jesus and the other apostles came, and found their way to the upper room. First there was the Pa.s.sover feast, observed after the manner of the Jews. Then followed the inst.i.tution of the new memorial--the Lord's Supper. This brought the Master and his disciples together in very sacred closeness. Judas, the one discordant element in the communion, had gone out, and all who remained were of one mind and one heart. Then began the real farewell. Jesus was going away, and he longed to be remembered. This was a wonderfully human desire.

No one wishes to be forgotten. No thought could be sadder than that one might not be remembered after he is gone, that in no heart his name shall be cherished, that nowhere any memento of him shall be preserved.

We all hope to live in the love of our friends long after our faces have vanished from earth. The deeper and purer our love may have been, and the closer our friends.h.i.+p, the more do we long to keep our place in the hearts of those we have loved.

There are many ways in which men seek to keep their memory alive in the world. Some build their own tomb: few things are more pathetic than such planning for earthly immortality. Some seek to do deeds which will live in history. Some embalm their names in books, hoping thus to perpetuate them. Love's enshrining is the best way.

The inst.i.tution of the Last Supper showed the craving of the heart of Jesus to be remembered. "Do not forget me when I am gone," he said.

That he might not be forgotten, he took bread and wine, and, breaking the one and pouring out the other, he gave them to his friends as mementos of himself. He a.s.sociated this farewell meal with the great acts of his redeeming love. "This bread which I break, let it be the emblem of my body broken to be bread for the world. This wine which I empty out, let it be the emblem of my blood which I give for you."

Whatever else the Lord's Supper may mean, it is first of all a remembrancer; it is the expression of the Master's desire to be remembered by his friends. It comes down to us--Christ's friends of to-day--with the same heart-craving. "Remember me; do not forget me; think of my love for you." Jesus' farewell was thus made wondrously sacred; its memories have blessed the world ever since by their warmth and tenderness. No one can ever know the measure of the influence of that last night in the upper room upon the life of these nineteen Christian centuries.

The Lord's Supper was not all of the Master's farewell. There were also words spoken which have been bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus, to believers ever since. To the eleven men gathered about that table these words were inexpressibly precious. One of them, one who leaned his head upon the Master's breast that night, remembered them in his old age, and wrote them down, so that we can read them for ourselves.

It is impossible in a short chapter to study the whole of this wonderful farewell address; only a few of its great features can be gathered together. It began with an exhortation, a new commandment,--"That ye love one another." We cannot understand how really new this commandment was when given to the Master's friends.

The world had never before known such love as Jesus brought into its wintry atmosphere. He had lived out the divine love among men; now his friends were to continue that love. "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Very imperfectly have the friends of the Master learned that love; yet wherever the gospel has gone, a wave of tenderness has rolled.

Next was spoken a word of comfort whose music has been singing through the world ever since. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in G.o.d, believe also in me." Unless it be the Twenty-Third Psalm, no other pa.s.sage in all the Bible has had such a ministry of comfort as the first words of the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. They told the sorrowing disciples that their Master would not forget them, that his work for them would not be broken off by his death, that he was only going away to prepare a place for them, and would come again to receive them unto himself, so that where he should be they might be also. He a.s.sured them, too, that while he was going away, something better than his bodily presence would be given them instead,--another Comforter would come, so that they should not be left orphans.

Part of the Master's farewell words were answers to questions which his friends asked him,--a series of conversations with one and another.

These men had their difficulties; and they brought these to Jesus, and he explained them. First, Peter had a question. Jesus had spoken of going away. Peter asked him, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Jesus told him that where he was going he could not follow him then, but he should follow him by and by. Peter was recklessly bold, and he would not have it said that there was any place he could not follow his Master. He declared that he would even lay down his life for his sake. "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?" answered the Master. "Wilt thou, indeed?" Then he foretold Peter's sad, humiliating fall--that, instead of laying down his life for his Lord.

After the words had been spoken about the Father's house and the coming again of Jesus for his friends, Thomas had a question. Jesus had said, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Thomas was slow in his perceptions, and was given to questioning. He would take nothing for granted. He would not believe until he could understand. "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" We are glad Thomas asked such a question, for it brought a wonderful answer. Jesus himself is the way and the truth and the life. That is, to know Christ is to know all that we need to know about heaven and the way there; to have Christ as Saviour, Friend, and Lord, is to be led by him through the darkest way--home. Not only is he the door or gate which opens into the way, but he is the way. He is the guide in the way; he has gone over it himself; everywhere we find his footprints. More than that; he is the very way itself, and the very truth about the way, and the life which inspires us in the way. To be his friend is enough; we need ask neither whither he has gone, nor the road; we need only abide in him.

"Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d, the Man is found, Sure-footed, knowing well the ground.

He knows the road, for this the way He travelled once, as on this day.

He is our Messenger beside, He is our Door and Path and Guide."

Then Philip had a question. He had heard the Master's reply to Thomas.

Philip was slow and dull, loyal-hearted, a man of practical common-sense, but without imagination, unable to understand anything spiritual, anything but bare, cold, material facts. The words of Jesus about knowing and seeing the Father caught his ear. That was just what he wanted,--to see the Father. So in his dulness he said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." He was thinking of a theophany,--a glorious vision of G.o.d. Jesus was wondrously patient with the dulness of his disciples; but this word pained him, for it showed how little Philip had learned after all his three years of disciples.h.i.+p. "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?" Then Jesus told him that he had been showing him the Father, the very thing Philip craved, all the while.

Jesus went on with his gracious words for a little while, and was speaking of manifesting himself to his disciples, when he was interrupted by another question. This time it was Judas who spoke.

"Not Iscariot," St. John is careful to say, for the name of Iscariot was now blotted with the blotch of treason. He had gone out into the night, and was of the disciple family no more. Judas could not understand in what special and exclusive manner Jesus would manifest himself to his own. Perhaps he expected some setting apart of Christ's followers like that which had fenced off Israel from the other nations.

But Jesus swept away his disciple's thought of any narrow manifestation. There was only one condition--love. To every one who loved him and obeyed his words he would reveal himself. The manifesting would not be any theophany, as in the ancient Shekinah, but the spiritual in-dwelling of G.o.d.

After these questions of his disciples had all been answered, Jesus continued his farewell words. He left several bequests to his friends, distributing among them his possessions. We are apt to ask what he had to leave. He had no houses or lands, no gold or silver. While he was on his cross the soldiers divided his clothes among themselves. Yet there are real possessions besides money and estates. One may have won the honor of a n.o.ble name, and may bequeath this to his family when he goes away. One may have acquired power which he may transmit. It seemed that night in the upper room as if Jesus had neither name nor power to leave to his friends. To-morrow he was going to a cross, and that would be the end of everything of hope or beauty in his life.

Yet he quietly made his bequests, fully conscious that he had great possessions, which would bless the world infinitely more than if he had left any earthly treasure. One of these bequests was his peace.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." It was his own peace; if it had not been his own he could not have bequeathed it to his friends. A man cannot give to others what he has not himself. It was his own because he had won it. Peace is not merely ease, the absence of strife and struggle; it is something which lives in the midst of the fiercest strife and the sorest struggle. Jesus knew not the world's peace,--ease and quiet; but he had learned a secret of heart-quietness which the world at its worst could not disturb. This peace he left to his disciples, and it made them richer than if he had given them all the world's wealth.

Another of his possessions which he bequeathed was his joy. We think of Jesus as the Man of sorrows, and we ask what joy he had to give. It seemed a strange time, too, for him to be speaking of his joy; for in another hour he was in the midst of the Gethsemane anguish, and to-morrow he was on his cross. Yet in the upper room he had in his heart a most blessed joy. Even in the terrible hours that came afterwards, that joy was not quenched; for we are told that for the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame. This joy also he bequeathed to his friends. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you." We remember, too, that they really received this legacy. The world wondered at the strange secret of joy those men had when they went out into the world. They sang songs in the darkest night. Their faces shone as with a holy inner light in the deepest sorrow. Christ's joy was fulfilled in them.

He also put within the reach of his friends, as he was about to leave them, the whole of his own inheritance as the only begotten Son of G.o.d.

He gave into their hands the key of heaven. He told them they should have power to do the works which they had seen him do, and even greater works than these. He told them that whatsoever they should ask the Father in his name the Father would give to them. The whole power of his name should thus be theirs, and they might use it as they would.

Nothing they might ask should be refused to them; all the heavenly kingdom was thrown open to them.

These are mere suggestions of the farewell gifts which Jesus left to his friends when he went away,--his peace, his joy, the key to all the treasures of his kingdom. He had blessed them in wonderful ways during his life; but the best and richest things of his love were kept to the last, and given only after he was gone. Indeed, the best things were given through his death, and could be given in no other way. Other men live to do good; they hasten to finish their work before their sun sets. G.o.d's plan for them is something they must do before death comes to write "Finis" at the end of their days. But the plan of G.o.d for Jesus centred in his death. It was the blessings that would come through his dying that were set forth in the elements used in the Last Supper,--the body broken, the blood shed. The great gifts to his friends, of which he spoke in his farewell words, would come through his dying. He must be lifted up in order to draw all men to him. He must shed his blood in order that remission of sins might be offered.

It was expedient for him to go away in order that the Comforter might come. His peace and his joy were bequests which could be given only when he had died as the world's Redeemer. His name would have power to open heaven's treasures only when the atonement had been made, and the Intercessor was at G.o.d's right hand in heaven.