Follow Me
“And when he had thus spoken, he saith unto Him Follow me.”
As understood by Simon, and as designed by his Master, this was a summons to martyrdom; and to his subsequent career it may well have imparted a solemn selfdevoted sensation. The baptism with which his Lord had been baptized now awaited himself, and he could not hope to get out of the world by any of the more easy exits. For him there was no euthanasia, no gentle falling on sleep, but others would gird him, and carry him whither he would not, even to that terrible cross. And like one who had sentence of death in himself, what henceforward was the worth of anything earthly The house at Capernaum no home, the boat no property, his wife a prospective widow: no one to live for now but Christ, nothing now to do except to feed the sheep and follow Jesus.
So was it with myriads of the early Christians, and so from age to age has it been with entire communities. Thus has faith been fostered, and a lofty life been led by men who made it their motto, “None but Christ,” and who in modern society have left the noblest elements it possesses.
But, prepared as every Christian should be to follow Christ to prison and to death, it would be aside from the purpose to speak as if this were the case in modern England, or as if, in saying to ourselves, “Follow me,” the Lord Jesus were calling us to spend years in the dungeon, or to close life on the scaffold.
No, my friends; He calls us to walk in His steps, and copy His pattern. He bids us keep close to Himself, and, as nearly as the altered conditions permit, He invites us to repeat His career. In a sense veiy intelligible, He says, “if any man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross, and deny himself, and come after me.”
And surely it is a delightful thought, that one such life has been led in this world of ours. To some of us it would be a new sensation, when evening closed, to look back on a single day rightly spent — nothing omitted, nothing blundered, nothing wrong in thought, nothing rashly spoken. But here is One who lived, not separate from His brethren, but separate from sin, and who could look back, not on a single day, but an entire existence exempt from all evil, and who to God presented day by day, on behalf of His people, * an unsullied oblation, a spotless sanctity, a perfect obedience. It is delightful and amazing to think that with materials such as are placed at our own disposal, in a climate not the most bracing, in a body by no means proof against pain or defiant of fatigue, in. a society not the most moral or devout, going about from place to place with companions who had no inspiration to contribute, and usually sojourning where there was no seclusion and little sympathy, there should have been led a life so perfect, that at its close there was nothing to regret, and if it had been repeated there was nothing to improve. And surely it makes the Christian’s career the highest of vocations that he is called to be o 2 Christ’s follower, and that he has it set to him as his problem to live a life the likest possible in this our present time.
You understand’? You are not called to live an Oriental life under northern skies, or a patriarchal life in modern Europe, any more than an angel life in the midst of men. You are not asked to speak Hebrew, either original or translated, nor are you bidden wear k any peculiar garb, or affect any singular appearance; but you are invited to study that great History which supplies the perfect and universal pattern, and here in London, under our murky firmament, with neighbours quite ordinary, some of them not religious, and many not at all romantic, you are asked to come a little nearer Christ, and as a result of that you are promised, “If any man follow me, he shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” You are encouraged to hope for an existence richer and larger and more truly illustrious than any known amongst the sons of men, a life radiant with God’s own light and exuberant with conscious immortality.
Follow Christ, and you shall never be far from the Father. That pleasant countenance with which the Father beheld the well-beloved Son extends to all His followers — to all who in faith and affection gather round Him or go after Him, like this little band beside the Lake of Galilee.
Follow Christ, and you will learn to do things as He did them. You will learn to feed the sheep or the lambs as He fed them — warning, reproving, exhorting, with a kindred long-suffering. You will learn to be calm amidst astounding insult; and, what is harder still, you will learn to be kind to most unattractive misery. You will learn to be meek and lowly — magnanimous towards the injurious — accessible to ignorance, to conscious guilt, and poverty. You will learn to meet temptation with “Thus it is written;” and for trial you will learn to prepare by praying more earnestly.
Follow Christ, and He will conduct you where no other can take you. I do not mean merely in that better life beyond to which He is the only entrance; but in this present world there are heights of attainment and regions of joy which are only reached in o 3 His company. All know something of the spell exerted by a master spirit — as when to Beza’s learning and liveliness Calvin added force and firmness, and as when Melancthon’s mild convictions were, under God, by his energetic colleague quickened up into evangelistic fervour. So, infinitely rather, when the Master is Christ and the moulding power the Holy Spirit. Both Peter and John loved Christ. It would be hard to say which loved Him most, but it is safe to say, that but for that love they would never have stood out from the mass of their undistinguished cotemporaries; they would have gone down to nameless graves with neighbour Galileans. But Jesus called them to Himself, and they rose and left all, and followed Him; and whilst in the mind and temperament of each He left all that was fundamental, Peter’swarm rapidity was mellowed by the higher wisdom, John’s silent intuition found an object in the incarnate Word, and an utterance amidst the Asiatic Churches. And although that following of the Master led the one to Herod’s prison and the other to an isle called Patmos, He who sent His angel to the one and came Himself to the other, so transfigured the spot, that alongside of his captive the Emperor was poorly lodged, and the guilty Herod was greatly to be pitied; — for that dungeon was draped in the light inaccessible, and to that ocean rock came a Visitant, with a voice like the cataract sounding, who said to the exile, “Fear not, I am the First and the Last.” And so, if you are rightly aspiring, you will not rejoice because your name is written on earth; you will seek to have it known in heaven. You will seek to have it engraved on the breastplate — the heart of the great High Priest; and, as in loving communion and growing like-mindedness you keep on to follow Him, He will raise you above paltry ambition — above the sordid tastes and sinful ways of the world around you — above the evil habits and unholy passions which at present most deeply distress you. As you follow on you will come to know Him better and trust Him more, and admitted to a commurion of which the world knows nothing, you will at last find yourself looking down on earthly cares and solicitudes, on tumults of the people and national commotions, from heights such as the mere sage or statesman never scaled; and it will not he “a voice like a falling star,” but the vision of a rising one, which proclaims your promotion — gone to shine in the firmament for ever and ever.
Finally, if you keep on to follow Christ, He will take you up where all others leave you. One by one the companions of the pilgrimage drop off and disappear. If you are young, father and mother will forsake you; if you are older, the friends and fellow-travellers who cheer the road will always be changing, and some of the most valued will. pass on before. And at last that mysterious limit will be reached where the rest can come no farther; and as one by one the senses close — as in the thick fog dear faces fade away, and as far down the strand fond and familiar voices cease to overtake you, a countenance that you have never seen before, and which yet you know full wrell, will say, as plainly as the Supreme of Loveliness can say, “It is I: be not afraid;” and so with gladness and rejoicing shall you be brought into the palace of the King, and there you shall abide.
Do you then, dear friends, who are still leading lives unreal, unworthy, unhappy, come to Christ; and you who profess to he disciples, follow the Master. Follow with your eye fixed on His pattern, and with a prayer ascending for the strengthening aids of His Spirit. Follow Him as you go out to teach your class this afternoon, or as you gather your children round you to tell them of His love. Follow Him as you sit in the sick-room of your friend the long night or the lonely day, or as to your own lips you raise the cup of weariness and pain. Follow Him as you go forth to the task of the morrow, and do with might the work He assigns; and follow Him as with pleasant looks or a helping hand you cheer a comrade struggling through His toil. And if thus you follow, the Forerunner will never be far away. His right hand will sustain you; and, like Mr. Standfast, if it be calm on the day of your departure, you may be able to leave like testimony: “I am now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are over. I am going now to see that head which was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith; but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight. I have loved to hear Him spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there have I coveted to set my foot too.”