God's Ideal of Character
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’’ — Matt. 3:17.
THERE is a lake in Switzerland in which the traveller may see reflected trees and houses in the distance that are themselves out of sight. Jesus Christ is God brought down to our level — God made thinkable, put within the compass of our highest thought. The very highest thought of man is man. We try to think of something higher, and we make it a monster. We think of angels, and they are men: and there isn’t any conception that we are capable of higher than man. God puts Himself within our highest conception that He may be thinkable to us, and thus brought near. He is a Spirit. Well, I cannot think pure spirit. As soon as I try, it assumes a ghostly shape. It must
have some tangible form. But I can think a
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man; I have some conception of the human form, the human attributes, human thought, feeling, affection, and motive. So that God puts Himself within the compass of our conception by becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. But Christ is more than God; He is a man — not God humanized, nor man deified, but God and man; and I am permitted to think of Him as man just as truly as if He were not God, and as God just as truly as if He were not man. As God He is the Wonder-worker, and when I need His omnipotent power I come to Him as God. As man He is the Sympathizer, bearing our infirmities; and when I need sympathy I come to Him as man. We have in the text God’s ideal of character; in looking down upon this character-picture, reflected in the lake of humanity, He sees that in it which pleases Him: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
I. His Ideal of Purity.
“Such an High Priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.”
The microscopic view of His enemies was placed upon Him, His friends studied Him. and all agree with Pilate when he says, “I find no fault in Him.” He was pure, and it was not the kind of purity that has to be treated like a hot-house plant — put away in a cell to keep the weather from it: it was a purity that came in contact with impurity; that could stand the test of exposure. He was not a man of books; He never wrote a book. He was a man of men. He was a man that touched bad men, and lost His very reputation from the fact that He was a friend of publicans and sinners. He stood not only the test of contact, — a great Gulf ‘Stream flowing through an ocean of pollution without mingling with its waters, — but He stood the fire test. You cannot tell whether gold is pure or not by just touching it, but, to test its purity, you must put it in the furnace. Jesus Christ for forty days was put in the furnace — shall I say, of perdition? — with the engineer of the bottomless pit to keep hot the fires, and no dross was found. Now, if you try to imitate me, ten to one you will see all my faults before you see any virtues. We can catch the discord better than the harmonies; and the old gnarl on the tree will attract more attention than the most beautiful symmetry of trunk and branches.
I remember hearing a sermon once on the resurrection of Christ. It was a hot August evening, and right in the midst of the sermon a black beetle came through the window, lighted on the preacher’s forehead, and remained there twenty minutes. That is all of the sermon I remember to this day — the black beetle on the man’s forehead! It was the only bad thing about it, but it attracted more attention than all the good. There is no bad in Christ, to divert our attention; so that we may exert all the powers within us to attain the good. The perfection of the Model inspires us to try to reach it.
A little company of us climbed a hill near Asheville, N. C. We soon became weary and sat down to rest. Another party of us climbed Black Mountain, nine hours of struggle over stones and through the roughest paths in all the mountains; and yet we did not feel much wearied, because we had before us the prospect of such a view as no poet ever sang and no painter’s brush ever portrayed. The grandeur of the scene before us inspired us to greater effort.
II. Christ is God’s Ideal of Sympathy.
He sympathized with the sorrowful. He wept with Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted writh grief, and He understood the sorrow of every heart as you and I cannot.
I tried this afternoon to comfort a poor wife whose husband had committed suicide; but my words to her were cold, and she turned around and said, “My dear man, you don’t know anything about it,” while she shrieked and tore her hair with a grief that I never felt. She told the truth: I did not know anything about it. But I could tell her of Jesus, who did know all about it.
Jesus is sympathetic, not only with our sorrows, but our joys. He went to the marriage feast as readily as to the funeral. His heart was warm toward rich and poor. He was not repelled by the blind beggar, so ragged that he threw aside his old cloak as he came into
His presence. With the young man of wealth, well dressed, the culture of the times in his face and on his lip, Jesus is just as sympathetic. Looking upon the crowd as sheep having no shepherd, He had compassion; and after midnight till one, two, and three o’clock in the morning, He sits by the side of a learned Jewish rabbi, explaining to him the way of life, sympathizing with his struggles and his doubts. He sympathized with the ignorant and with the learned. He loved people; He was “the Son of Man,” the Son of humanity; and as such He is our model of sympathy.
III. We have in Christ God’s Ideal of Prayerfulness.
He prayed on the Mount of Transfiguration, and while He prayed the form of His countenance was changed, as light streamed from it. It was just before a great exaltation. He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, and while He prayed the form of His countenance was again changed, as sorrow and bloody sweat streamed from it. He prayed in the sunlight,
He prayed under the cloud: and you and I need most to pray when we are depressed, and when we are exalted; when we are apt to despair, and when we are apt to get proud. In the valley amid the shadows, and on the mountain-top amid the gleams of glory, we need most to be prayerful. If any man on earth could afford to live without prayer, it was Christ. But He prayed, because as a man He needed what only prayer could bring; and there was no make-believe about it. That scene in the garden was no tragedy acted merely for our instruction. It was real prayer, and in answer to it He received from the Father the ministry of angels He needed.
IV. We have also in Christ God’s Ideal of Greatness.
We know what the world calls greatness. Caesar was great, because he laid all the w7orld under tribute. Napoleon was great, because in his day he was the most powerful man living. Men are great who rise above others; great in proportion to the number of other men that they can make their servants. Who is the greatest politician in New York? The man who can influence the most men at the polls. Who is the greatest statesman in the United States? The man that wields the greatest power for any idea or political party. Who is the greatest man financially? The man that has the most dollars, with which he can wield an influence almost irresistible. What the world calls greatness is getting above people, and making them tributary to us.
On the other hand, the greatness that Jesus Christ sets before us is not rising above men, but getting under men and lifting them up. It is not making other men tributary to us, but it is our becoming tributary to other men. The greatness Jesus Christ taught is in proportion to the ministry that we render to others, and not to the ministers that we make to ourselves. “He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” “If any man would be great among you, let him become the servant of all.”
I should like to strike a keynote just here for church work. What is the mission of a church? Is it to help other people or to get other people to help it?
Longfellow’s “Excelsior” is good enough poetry, but I never did sympathize very much with that fellow for freezing to death on the mountain-side while trying to climb above others. If he had been striving to lift somebody else, it would have made his blood circulate better, and kept him alive.
You may have seen a blind man standing on a street corner in New York, selling papers. A gentleman passing by one day met a ragged newsboy with a bundle of papers in his hand, right near this old blind man’s stand. “I want a paper,’’ he said to the boy. “I can’t sell you any papers here,” replied the urchin. “Why not?” asked the man. “Because this is Blindy’s corner.” He went up and bought a paper from the blind man, and then turned to the boy and said, “Why is it that you will not sell me a paper?” “Well,” said he, “it is just this: we boys got together, and we said that Blindy could not work for himself, and we passed a resolution that, if any boy sold a paper there, we would lick him: he has got to have that corner for himself.” I don’t know where that boy goes to Sunday-school; I don’t know his mother; but I know one thing — he is
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greater in the estimation of Christ than the men who have become famous by their selfish grasping.
We see the Climax of this Greatness in Jesus Christ on the Cross. -
“Why,” said an infidel to me, “you tell me that God can be pleased with that bloody scene on the cross. I could not be pleased to look upon my only child suffer thus, and I am not nearly as perfect as God.” My reply was: “Friend, I could not love or respect a God that would not be pleased with such a scene as that.” Let me illustrate. You remember that scene in a German village: A blacksmith could be seen hour after hour, if you had looked through his shop window, chained to the anvil, foaming at the mouth, while the blood ran from his wrists. He was writhing in madness. That was indeed horrible. I would fain forget it. But I learn that the * good blacksmith was sitting one day in the village post-office, with his neighbors’ children gathered around him, when a great mad dog with foaming mouth and glaring eyes appeared 2 jo Milk and Meat.
in the door. He springs up and throttles the infuriated beast, but not until the fatal poison goes into his own blood. When I have learned that the noble man put the chains upon his own hands as a protection to his neighbors, my horror turns into admiration, and I should like to build the blacksmith a monument higher than Napoleon’s in Paris.
I read in a chapter of Italian history of a poor girl in a dungeon, on a damp floor, in a dark room, with scanty fare, her life ebbing out. One year she stays, three years she stays, six years she stays: and after the sixth year there is a corpse on the marble floor. They throw it into a box and bury it in a potter’s It horrifies me. but when I turn over a page I read that the girl was sent to prison because she had a secret she would not divulge. and that the first day of every month an officer of the government would come in and say: “If you will give us the secret we know you possess, we will set you free.” But she steadfastly refused. What was the secret? It was connected with the honor and the life of her own beloved father: and for his sake she lingered and died upon the marble floor in the dark room. Now I feel that I should like to build a monument to the noble Italian girl higher and grander than St. Peter’s Cathedral.
I look upon another scene: the mocking; the crown of thorns; the weakened body bearing a heavy cross, and sinking beneath it — hands and feet adjusted, while the nails are driven, crushing through, the broken heart crying out: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” As I look, the elements grow dark and an earthquake shakes the earth. I can but say, “That is horrible,” I am not pleased with it. But when I turn over the page and read that it was not for Himself, but for other people, that that crown of thorns was worn, that the heavy cross was borne, that His feet and hands were pierced, and that heart was broken; and when, reading a little further, I find that not for people in general, but for me, was all this suffered, — my horror turns to admiration, adoration, love, and my enthusiasm knows no bounds.
Shall I go to the village in Germany and ask the parents of the children saved from the mad dog what they think of the memory of the blacksmith; shall I go to Italy and ask
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the father for whom that noble girl died what he thinks of her who sacrificed her life for him, — and will they be base enough to refuse to express their gratitude?
The cross, with its agony, holds before us the climax of true greatness. A God that could look upon it and not be pleased would be unworthy of the respect, much less the love, of noble minds.
More than that, friends: if you accept the principle of my infidel acquaintance, you will go to Washington and tear down that monument, oVer five hundred feet high, as you shout: “Blot out the memory of Washington! Forget the deeds of the men that died in the Revolution! Let all martyrs be forgotten! Let the names of those that shaped this government, and gave us religious and civil liberty, be no more remembered!” We are living upon the fruits of their suffering, upon the results of their heroic self-denial. Worse still: if you make up your mind never to live upon the suffering of others, you will never think with gratitude even of your mother.
But, if what I have said is true, I am lost; there is no hope for me. Only the kind of purity and sympathy and prayerfulness and greatness that is manifest in Jesus Christ can ever please God. I am not holy, I am selfish, and I am not so prayerful as I ought to be; I am not in sympathy with all men, like Him: and if I must bring to God a character as spotless and as sympathetic and unselfish as the character of Jesus Christ, there is no hope for me for this world or the next. Yet as I reflect I am cheered, because God tells me that I can bring before Him the character of Christ; if I will bring in the arms of my faith His ideal, He will accept me.
I come, pleading God’s own ideal of character; if I will be pleased with what pleases Him, He will be pleased with me; He will put the merit of His ideal to my account, and He will begin at once to lift me toward the realization of His ideal.
A lady said to me: “I am not satisfied with myself. I have been praying and weeping and seeking rest, but all to no purpose.” “Are you satisfied with the Lord Jesus?” I asked. She said, “Certainly.” “Well,” said I, “you and I belong to the same company — dissatisfied with ourselves, but satisfied with the Lord; and if I know anything about it, that is salvation.”
By and by God will look on us, and be pleased, not simply because we are pleased with what pleases Him, but because of what we are. He will make real in us His ideal in Christ. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” — not as He was. Some of us are a little like Him as He was — the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But the promise is that we shall be like Him as He is — not the sufferer on the cross, but the God-man on the throne. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is;” and, I submit, that is a prospect worthy of our constant thought and our brightest hope.
The other day I went to see a working-man about forty-five years of age. I said: “Are you a Christian?” He replied: “Yes, I have been trusting the Lord for about thirty years.” “Bright, is it?” “Bright as the promise of God; but I am in great suffering,” and he turned over from me, excruciating agony filling every part of his nervous system until he could hardly endure it. He said: “I am in pain, sir, but I have the peace that passeth understanding. My infidel doctor came in yesterday, and said: ‘There is no hope, sir. I have done everything I can for you.’ I said: ‘Doctor, your no hope is the brightest hope I ever had; sure as you live, sir, that is the sweetest sentence you ever spoke at my bedside. I have been lying here in pain. In a few days, if you are right, I wrill be beyond the reach of pain.’” The infidel’s no hope at death is the dawning of hope to every Christian man; it is the dawning of the hope, bright as heaven, that the character of Jesus Christ, God’s ideal, is certain to be ours by and by.