The Educational Reticence of Jesus

I have said that the sympathy of Jesus was spontaneous; it was not suggested by the thought that it befitted the Messiah, But when He became the head of a league of pity it was not enough that His own sympathy should be spontaneous; He had to train into spontaneity the sympathy of others. We have seen that He began by following the law of human experience. We haveseen that according to that law human sympathy begins in the innermost circle — the family circle, and spreads itself outward to the circumference. We have seen that its first outward movement is towards cases which are fraught with wonder, suggestive of mystery, out of the common round. And we have seen Jesus guiding the league according to this instinct of nature, bending His steps 178 in the direction where its incipient sympathy should best be stimulated. From the house of Simon’s family sorrow He has led His disciples into the fields at eventide, and allowed their eyes to rest on that class of sufferers of all others the most mysterious — the men who seem to occupy the borderland between two worlds. It is His object to descend from the rare to the commonplace, from the sufferings on the mountain to the sufferings on the plain where all men meet. That descent is to be gradual. Step by step the league of pity, like its Divine Leader, is to come down the hill — to proceed from the solitude to the intercourse with a few, from the intercourse with a few to a meeting with the many, from a meeting with the many to a contact with the world. Accordingly, we are not surprised that after the demoniac comes the leper; this is Luke’s order — what is more to the purpose, it is Mark’s, In proceeding from the demoniac to the leper, Jesus in a sense came down the hill, The leper was nearer to the common day than the demoniac; his complaint was purely physical; it was essentially a suffering of the flesh. Yet, strange as it may seem, it was not the complaint itself that excited attention. Physical as was the disease, loathsome as were its signs, conspicuous as were its peculiarities, the mind of the son of Israel fastened on none of these things. To him the horror of leprosy lay precisely in the thing which was not seen — which really was not there. If from one point of view the disease stood at the opposite pole to demoniacal possession, from another and a clearer point of view it was more allied to demoniacal possession than to any other ailment. The misery of the leper in the eyes of the Jew was not the real uncleanness of his skin but the supposed uncleanness of his heart. He was believed to be the victim of a visitation from God. The plague from which he suffered was associated in the public mind with the hand of Providence. The uppermost idea concerning it was the thought of mystery — the sense of an unseen touch, the presence of a voice that was still. The leper, like the demoniac, stood

out to the eyes of the league of pity, not as one who bore the ills which flesh is Zezr to, but as one who carried in his flesh a mystic spiritual element from which humanity at large was free,.

So far, then, we have a continuation of the educational process of Jesus. But now I wish to direct attention to a point which first occurs in the healing of the leper and which seems at the outset to be at variance with the idea of any educational process at all. It is a distinctively new feature in our study of the Portrait of Jesus. Hitherto it has not caught our eye. When it does catch our eye the impression is not at first altogether pleasant, because it appears to suggest an irregularity in the profile. The front view is all that could be desired. We see the leper displaying a faith which as yet is rare, ‘ Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.’ We see Jesus joyfully accepting his approach, greeting him with a friendly touch, and cheering him with the rapid words, ‘I will, be thou clean.’ We see the cure complete, the leper cleansed. Then we have a sidelight, and it seems an anti-climax. We expect to hear Jesus say. ‘Go and proclaim to all your brethren the glad tidings of redeeming love’; instead of that He dismisses him with the words, ‘See thou say nothing to any maul’?

Now, there are circumstances in which such a reticence would command our instant approval, In the case of one not confident of his powers we should commend the modesty that withheld his name; we should commend it even after a successful effort. But at no time can we attribute such a spirit to Jesus. Not even in the days preceding the gospel narrative, when, as I hold, He took His mission on trial, can we attribute to Him the shrinking of diffidence. The very thought of making an effort to satisfy the holiness of the Father was, as I have said, the boldest idea that ever entered into the heart of man. Every healing act of Jesus was on the lines of this boldness; it was the attempt to glorify the Father by beautifying the creature. Every act confirmed to Jesus

1 The prohibition to the demoniac (Luke iv. 41) is not a case of the same kind; that was a wish to prevent d/asphemy.

M the validity of His mission. Was it any part of His policy to appear less confident than He was? Was it not an advantage that men should see how fearless He was, how convinced He was? Nay, was it not desirable that men should share His conviction, should participate in His confidence? The modesty which would be commended in an incipient littérateur must be denied a place in the Portrait of Jesus. Moreover, from the testimony of Jesus Him-. self we have the best proof that a shrinking spirit was not the cause of His reticence. On an after occasion He says in so many words that it was only a ‘¢emporary expedient, ‘Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man be risen from the dead.’ He wished concealment to be broken after He had passed away. He felt that His absence would render beneficial that publicity which His presence made undesirable. And here at last we begin to see light — light from the direct words of Jesus. The question narrows itself into a very small compass. Why did Jesus deem that His presence on earth rendered publicity undesirable? If we can find the answer to that, we shall have solved the whole problem. At first the answer appears difficult. His presence seemed to facilitate, to accelerate, the course of charity; it was sweetness and light; it was fulness of joy. The fame of that presence would have quickened the drying of human tears. It would have made benevolence easy. It would have congregated the world of Jewish sufferers round a common centre. It would have dispensed with the need of private enterprise. It would have relieved many hearts of anxious responsibilities. It would have sent each inquirer to the fountainhead. One is still disposed to say, ‘Why hide the leper’s cure?’

And the answer is, ‘Just decause of all these benefits; just because the visible presence of Jesus would have made charity an easy thing.’ Remember what it is that Jesus desires. It is not simply the healing of humanity; it is man’s education to be the healer of humanity. From the moment in which He became head of the league of pity His primary object became, not the abolition of the hospital, but the training for the hospital. If the Father had empowered Him by one sweeping fiat to make the world instantaneously whole, He would not have used that power. He would have preferred the old alternative, the slow alternative. If He had been looking simply to the cure of the world, the quickest mode would have been the best. But He was looking to the curing of the world — the human sympathy by which the healing was to come. To Him the most precious part of that sympathy was the seeking out of disease; ‘The Son of Man,’ He says, ‘is come to seek that which was lost.’ These words express a real fact of His experience; they express the conviction that for Him all sympathy must begin in seeking. Therefore He desired that His followers should also seek. He did not wish His league of pity to be saved trouble. He did not wish all cases of distress to be brought to its very door so that it could not e/p aiding. Such would have happened if His power had been proclaimed. There would have been a visible earthly centre round which would have circled the victims of human sorrow. The league of pity would have been spared the pain of locomotion, spared the pain of investigation. There would cease to be any need for ‘considering the poor. The function of sympathy would be limited to the hand. It would no more require deliberation, judgment, discernment. It would lose its character as an intellectual power. It would become an attribute rather of the body than of the soul.

Therefore Jesus said, ‘ Let the veil fall” He felt it expedient to cloud the brightness of the prospect. The exercise of human sympathy demanded a certain amount of darkness, All education requires some reticence on the part of the teacher; if the mind of the pupil is to be drawn out he must in some things be left to himself. The school of Jesus was no exception. He felt that for the league of pity absolute light would be destructive, too much help ruinous. Therefore in the days of His earthly presence He forbade its members to make Him known — forbade them to render easy that path of benevolence which ought to be a path of anxious inquiry.

We hear a great deal about what is called the silence of God — the veil of mystery which besets the world. Christian apologists have not scrupled to say that the silence began when the world rejected Jesus. But here is a silence of God which originated in the very presence of Jesus — which by His own admission would have had no existence if He had been absent, Here is a silence of God which comes in the very heart of the gospel history, which is proclaimed to be an integral part of the plan of that history. It comes, not from the anger, but from the favour of heaven. It is sent, not to retard but to accelerate, not to destroy but to fulfil. Standing in the gallery before the great Portrait, I am glad that, where so many phases of man’s experience have been recorded, this phase has not been neglected. We have all our unrevealing moments — our moments when the spring of life seems dry. The follower of Christ has felt these a special difficulty, and he has sought to explain them by the zmperfection of his following. It is well that from the great gallery itself there should come a suggestion of another kind — the suggestion that the silence of God may be one of the privileges of the follower of Jesus. It is well that among its other revelations the gospel should reveal an hour of silence — an hour whose silence is found to have been part of the mighty drama, and whose stillness has been a stage in the progress of mankind.

ORD, in the hour when I feel Thy silence, remind me of this command to the

leper. Remind me that Thy education of my soul demands hours of silence. Remind me that if I would grow to the perfect stature the help must not be all on 7Ay side — that there must be moments in which I shall feel myself alone. Reveal to me that I grow, not only by my sight of Thee, but by my want of Thee. Let me learn the blessing of individual effort — the blessing of being left to choose my own way. I thank Thee that Thou hast not sent too much light — light that would make my will impossible. I thank Thee that Thou hast left a margin for my free choice. It is only those in the highways and the hedges that thou compellest to come in. The creatures of the field are more guided than I. The instinct of the bee is more unerring than my reason; but I prefer mv reason; it participates in the hour of Thy silence.