Behold My Servant

“He does not fail
For thy impatience, but stands by thee still;
Patient, unfaltering — till thou too shalt grow
Patient, — and wouldst not miss the sharpness grown
To custom, which assures Him at thy side.”
H. HAMILTON KINc.

ISAIAH xiii. 1.)

HEN our Lord took on Himself the form of a
7 i servant, girded Himself, and began to wash the

feet of his disciples, it was no new office that He performed; for the life of God is ever one of service, of ministry. He rules all, because He g serves all. Inasmuch as He is the highest, He must also be the lowliest, according to the everlasting order of the spiritual realm. The ministry of Jesus was therefore the revelation of the life that God had ever been living in the blue depths of heaven; and if once we can learn the principles of that life which filled hundreds and thousands of homes with blessing and joy during those marvellous years of earthly ministry, we shall have a model’ on which to form our own service to God and man. Our Lords life and ministry revealed the ideal of service.

There is no doubt as to the applicability of this passage to our Lord. The Holy Ghost, by the evangelist Matthew, directly refers it to Him, and says its meaning was filled to the brim by that matchless life which for a brief space cast its radiance on our world (Matt. xii. 18). Oh that He who took upon Him the form of a servant — who was amongst his disciples as one that served, and who proposes some day to wait on his wearied workers as they sit together at his table in his kingdom — may so incarnate Himself in us, that we in our measure may repeat those features of his earthly ministry, which God can crown with the enduement of his Holy Spirit, and with which He can co-operate! “I have put my Spirit upon Him.” “YT will hold thine hand.”

They are rare qualities which Jehovah calls us to behold in the elect Servant in whom his soul delights: a Divine modesty; a Divine humility; a Divine perseverance.

I. THE MODESTY OF THE BEST WORK. — God is always at work in our world, leading the progress of suns, refreshing grass with dew, directing the flight of the morning beams, and the glancing light of the firefly; compassing our path and our lying down, and determining the fail of the shell on the sand of the ocean bottom. But all his work is done so quietly, so unobtrusively, with such reticence as to his personal agency, that many affirm there is no God at all.

He spreads the breakfast table each morning for myriads in wood, and ocean, and the homes of men; but steals away before we catch a sight of Him to whom we owe all. We know that He has been at work; but He is gone without a sound, without a footmark, leaving only the evident touch of his hand.

Thus was it with the work of Christ. He put his hand on the mouths of those who proclaimed his deity, or blazoned abroad his fame. He repeatedly told the recipients of his bounty that they must not make Him known. He stole away from the multitudes that filled the porches of Bethesda; so that the healed paralytic wist not who had healed him. He lingered as long as He could in the highlands of Galilee, until his brethren remonstrated with Him. He did not strive, nor cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

This quality is God’s hall-mark upon the best work. His highest artists do not inscribe their names upon their pictures, nor introduce their portraits amongst their groups. It is enough for them to have borne witness to the truth and beauty of the universe; they wish for nothing more than to reveal what they. have seen in nature’s holiest shrines, or in the transient gleams of beauty in the human face. To win a soul for God; to cleanse the scar of the leper; to make blind eyes see; to give back the dead to mother, sister, friend — this is recompense enough. To look up from the accomplished work into the face of God; to catch his answering smile; to receive the reward of the Father who is in secret — this is heaven, compared with which the praise of man is as valueless as his censure.

Art thou conscious, fellow servant, that this is the temper of thy soul, the quality of thy work? For if not, if in thy secret soul thou seekest the sweet voice of human adulation, if thou art conscious of a wish to pass the results of thy work into newspaper paragraph or to common talk of men, be sure that deterioration is fast corrupting thy service, as rottenness the autumn fruit. It is high time that thou shouldest withdraw thyself to some lonely spot, where the silt that darkens the crystal waters of thy soul may drop away, and again they mirror nothing but the sky with its depths of blue, its hosts of stars. The only work that God approves, that is permanent and fruitful, that partakes of the nature of Christ, is that which neither seeks nor needs advertisement. The bird is content to sing; the flower to be beautiful; the child to unfold its nature to the eye of love; and the true worker to do the will of God.

II. THE HUMILITY OF THE BEST WORK. — God’s choicest dealings have been with shepherd boys taken freshly from their flocks; with youngest sons without repute; with maidens growing to mature beauty in the obscurity of some highland village. He has put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the humble and meek. And so was it with our Lord. He passed by Herod’s palace, and chose Bethlehem and its manger bed. He refused the empires of the world, and took the way of the cross. He selected his apostles and disciples from the ranks of the poor. He revealed his choicest secrets to babes. He left the society of the Pharisee and Scribe, and expended Himself on bruised reeds and smoking flax, on dying thieves and fallen women, and the peasantry of Galilee.

A veed! How typical it is of the broken heart crushed by the tread of unkindness and tyranny! There is no beauty in its russet plume. There is no strength in its slender stem. There is no attractiveness in the fever-breeding swamp where it grows. And if none would journey far in search of a reed, how much less of one that had been crushed by the boisterous frolic of the river-horse, or by the tread of the peasant! So hearts get broken. Too fragile to resist the pressure of the mad rush of selfishness and the tread of unfeeling cruelty, without a sound. they break, and thenceforth are cast aside as some useless thing, not worth a thought.

The smoking flax! Wow it smoulders! How slowly the sparks follow one another along its fibres! How powerless it is to kindle the slightest gauze to a flame! So feebly does love burn in some hearts, that only He who knows all things can know that love is there at all. So fitful, so irregular, so destitute of kindling power. Ah me! reader, you and I have known hours when not the coals of juniper, but the smoking flax, have been the true emblem of our love.

The superficial worker ignores these in rude haste. He passes them by to seek an object more commensurate with his powers. Give me, he cries, a sphere in which I may influence strong, noble, and heroic souls! Give me an arena where I may meet foemen worthy of my steel! Give me a task where my stores of knowledge may have adequate scope! And if these fail, he counts himself ill-used. “I will do nought, if I cannot do the best.” Oh, foolish words! The best, the noblest, is to bend with a Divine humility over those whom the world ignores, exercising a holy ingenuity, a sacred inventiveness; making of bruised reeds pipes of music or measuring rods for the New Jerusalem; fanning the spark of the smoking flax until that which had nearly died out in the heart of a Peter, sets on fire three thousand souls within seven weeks ot its threatened extinction.

This also is the test of true work. Where does it find thee, fellow-worker? Art thou ambitious for a larger sphere; grudging the pains needed to explain the gospel to the ignorant; to cope with the constant relapses and backslidings of the weak; to combat the fears of the timorous and mistrustful; to adjust the perpetual disputes and quarrellings of new-made disciples; to suit thy pace to the weakest and youngest of the flock? Beware! Thy work is in danger of losing its noblest quality; the hue is passing off the summer fruit; the tender tone which God loves is fading from thy picture; the grace of the day is dying. Before it is too late, get alone with God to learn that the noblest souls are sometimes found within bruised bodies, and the greatest work often emanates from the most inconspicuous sparks.

III.. DivINE PERSEVERANCE. — Though our Lord is principally concerned with the bruised and the dimly-burning wick, He is neither one nor the other (see R.V., marg.). He is neither discouraged nor does He fail. In the primeval world, the successive platforms on which He wrought in the ascending scale of creation were perpetually submerged by waves of chaos that swept them clear of his handiwork; but through all He persevered until the heavens and earth which now exist stood forth apparelled in beauty that elicited from the lips of the Creator the verdict, “It is very good.” Thus it shall be in the spiritual world. The centuries which have followed on Calvary’s supreme sacrifice have witnessed alternations of chaos with cosmos; of disorder with order; of confusion with advancing civilisation. In the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries especially, it seemed as though the results of the tears and martyrdoms and witnessing of the earlier age were entirely lost. But the Master was never once discouraged, nor slacked his hand; but through good report and evil pursued his purpose.

This, again, is the quality of the best work. That which emanates from the flesh is full of passion, fury, and impulse. It essays to deliver Israel by a spasm of force that lays an Egyptian dead in the sand; but it soon exhausts itself, and sinks back nerveless and spent. The renunciation of an enterprise, undertaken in hot haste, proves that it was assumed in the energy of the flesh, not given by the suggestion of the Spirit. Perseverance in the face of scorn and difficulty — in the teeth of pitiless criticism and obstinate hate, up the hill-brow, or across the trembling quag — is a proof that the task has been Divinely given, and that the ardent soul is feeding its strength from the Divine resources. If this perseverance is failing thee, bethink thee whether thy task is Heaven’s or of thine own choosing: if the latter, abandon it; but if indeed the former, then wait on the Lord till thy strength is renewed, and thou, too, shalt neither be discouraged nor fail.

But qualities like these, however excellent, cannot avail, with us at least, until there has been added, the enduement of the Holy Ghost. “1 will put my Spirit upon Him.” At the waters of baptism that promise was fulfilled; for as the Lord emerged from them, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit in a bodily shape descended upon Him and abode. Then his mouth was opened, and his public ministry commenced. For thirty years He had been content with the obscure and contemplative life of Nazareth; now He stepped forth into the world, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, and He has anointed Me to preach.”

What that scene was in the life of the Lord, Pentecost was for the Church. Then she was anointed for her Divine mission among men; the unction of the Holy One rested upon her, to be continued and renewed as the centuries slowly passed. What happened for the Church should take place in the history of each member of it. This anointing is for all, is to be received by faith, and is specially intended to equip us for work. Hast thou had thy share? If not, art thou not making a mistake in attempting God’s work without it? Tarry till thou art endued. Hast thou known it? Seek it on the threshold of each new enterprise. Be satisfied with nothing less than to be anointed with fresh oil.

And even this is not all. In the words, “I will hold thy hand and keep thee,” a suggestion is made of the co-operation of the Holy Ghost with every true servant of God. As we begin to speak, He falls on them that hear the Word. As we witness to the death, resurrection, and glory of Jesus, He witnesses also to the conscience and heart. When the voice from heaven speaks by our lips, the Holy Spirit says, Yea. Thus all-the

Whe Demonstration of the Spirit. 4I

words of God through us receive the demonstration of the Holy Spirit, as though one were to demonstrate by experiments, optically, what a lecturer was expounding orally to the ear of his audience.

It is impossible too strongly to emphasize the necessity of relying in Christian work on the co-witness of the Spirit of God. It not only relieves the worker of undue and exhausting strain by dividing his responsibilities with his Divine Partner; but it reinforces him with immeasurable power. This is what the apostle means by “the communion of the Holy Ghost,” which signifies the having in common. Happy is he who has learnt such community of aim and method with the Divine Spirit, as to be able to derive the greatest possible assistance from his co-operation.

Such are the Divine principles of service; and they need to be studied by each of us, if we would hear God say of us, in our measure, “Behold my servant whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth.”