The Principle of Christ’s Philanthropy

‘‘T have no man to put me into the pool; but while Iam coming, another steppeth down before me.’”’ — JouN v. 7.

THESE words were spoken by the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. The meeting of Christ and that impotent man was the meeting of the old world and the new. Two opposite systems of evolution stood side by side — the one which was setting and the one which was rising. The one was the crushing of the impotent; the other was the selection of the impotent. The one was the survival of the strong; the other was the preservation of the weak. The one would support only those who gave room for hope; the other sought out those whom the world had resigned in despair. This lame man was a victim to the old system. He was overlooked

by pity because his malady was desperate.

Stronger men got in before him. If he had possessed more power of motion, he would have been sooner healed; but men who were less ill received a privilege just because they were less ill. This was in real accord with the spirit of the ancient régime. Rome and Jerusalem alike put their most impotent men last in the roll for charity. Rome held them to be the enemies of the State, Jerusalem the enemies of God. This man was cured by change of air — change of civilisation. Nothing else could have cured him. As long as he remained in the old atmosphere he would have remained outside the healing pool. But he had come into a new atmosphere — the atmosphere of Jesus. The change was a change of ideal. The motto of the ancient régime had been, “Rescue the promising”; the motto of the new age was to be, “Rescue the perishing.” A man used to say to his God, “Pardon mine iniquity because it is trivial”; he was now with the prophetic psalmist to ery, “Pardon mine iniquity because it is great.” He used to say, “Pity me, for I have not been wholly to blame”; he was now to cry, “Save me for Thy mercy’s sake.” He used to say, ‘Choose me, for I am strong”; he was now to ery, “Accept me, for I am weak.” And his cry to man has changed like his cry to God.

When he prays his brother to help him into the pool, he does so on the ground of his impotence. Christ’s charity begins with the lowest room. It goes first to Galilee — to the region of the shadow of death. It bathes with the water of life him who is too feeble to reach the earthly pool. It brings its earliest treasures from the tomb, its diamond trophies from the dust, its golden jewels from the ground; it seeks first the impotent man.

Lord, Thou hast created a new attraction in my soul — the attraction to deformity. I had always the attraction toward beauty. I admired Nature’s vastness in India and her manifoldness in Greece. I admired Hellenic loveliness and Roman strength and Babylonian riches. I even admired weakness where it was coupled with successful effort — as where little Israel stood against the nations of the world and left an impress on history stronger than they. But I shrank from the sight of that which was hopelessly unsymmetrical. I would have had it buried out of my sight, sunk fathoms down in the depths of the sea. I put the lepers outside the gate, the demoniacs amid the tombs. I exterminated the defective in form; I annihilated the feeble in frame. I left homeless children on the highway; I exposed blighted infants to the blast.

I had no mansion in my house for the maimed, no place in my field for the paralytic, no room in my world for the ruined. But Thow camest, and the scene was transformed. Thou camest, and the hopeless were proclaimed the qualified. Thou camest, and the watchword was “the rising of the dead.” Thou camest, and the weakest were the most eligible, the humblest the. most acceptable, the lowest the most likely. Thou camest, and it was the blind who caught the beam, the lame who began to leap, the weary who furthest walked, the sick who heard the song, the laden who felt the lightness, the broken who stood the breeze, the rejected of earth who found the radiance of heaven. Those excluded from Bethesda were they whom Thou first beatified; let me stand in the new air with Thee!