The Hopefulness of Jesus
Gavest the weary thine hand.
If in the ways of the world
Stones have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing; to us thou wert still
Cheerful and healthful and firm.
M. Arnold.
It is cheering to know that our Leader never faltered, never lost heart, for one moment. The story of Jesus, from the moment of his birth until the day when he was taken up, is one of magnificent hopefulness. There was an old prophecy concerning him which said, He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth.’* And he never was discouraged. Life was not easy for him;
J57 it was always hard; but hope never languished in his heart.
His beginning was lowly and feeble in human eyes. He was born of a peasant mother. Though angels sang of his coming into the world, the shepherds found the wonderful Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. His early years were spent in poverty. He learned a trade — he whose hand had made the heavens wrought at a common carpenter’s bench. Yet the lowliness of his circumstances did not embitter his spirit. He never complained that his earthly life was not in keeping with the glory of his person or the dignity of his mission. He never said that he could make nothing of his life because of the narrowness and unmeetness of his environment. Indeed, out of his very poverty and toil, and out of the very limitations of his condition, came some of the finest things in his character.
It is never in ease or luxury, with freedom from sense of need and care, that the world’s best and strongest helpers are trained. Those who have grown up in the midst of common human conditions, knowing care and the pressure of life’s burdens, feeling the stress of need and the pinch of narrow limitations, meeting trial and enduring struggle, learn in these very experiences to be sympathetic and helpful to others.
Nor did the hopefulness of Jesus fail him in the days of his poverty and trial, or in the midst of his straitened circumstances. He lived a life of sweet content, and learned the lessons that were set for him. He never lost his joy. One secret was that he was ever doing his Father’s will; and this gave him gladness, even in the hour of bitterest pain. Another secret was his confidence in the final outcome of the work he was doing at such tremendous cost. He knew his mission could not fail.
The danger of narrow circumstances is that the heart may lose its sweetness and grow bitter. But Jesus went through his years of poverty, want, hardship, and toil with small earnings, and all the petty annoyances and frets of Galilean peasant life, with heart as quiet, peaceful, and loving as if he had been living yet in heaven. He was never fretted or worried. He was never afraid to see the last farthing go, or the last loaf eaten. He lived himself his own lesson against anxiety before he gave it to his disciples.
Few men have ever wrought in this world whose lives seemed more utter failures at the end than did the life of Jesus. There seemed no room for him in this world. He found no welcome when he first came. During the wonderful years of his public ministry, though crowds followed him, he was not loved, save by a very few. Most of those who followed him, followed him only for his miracles, through curiosity, or for the help they might get from him. At the last all men forsook him. Then all ended on a cross.
Yet in this long experience of unwelcome, rejection, and ingratitude, he was never discouraged. He foresaw the end, but he came toward the dark tragedy like a conqueror. Hope shone in his face, and burned in his words, like a flame of glory. In the same sentence in which he said he must be killed, he said also that he would be raised again the third day. Instead of speaking of his work as a failure, he spoke of the kingdom he was to establish as one that would fill the world. He went on making plans for the future, beyond his death, as if death would be only an incident in his great mission. The cross had no dismay for him, because he had a prevision of what lay beyond it. He talked of his kingdom, even on his trial.
What was the secret of this sublime hopefulness of Jesus y He knew that his work was only beginning. He was a sower, not a reaper. Ages to come would witness the harvest from his life, his teachings, his tears, his blood. He would rise again, and his name and glory and his saving health would fill all the earth. He would see of the travail of his soul, and would be satisfied.
We have another illustration of the hopefulness of Jesus in his dealing with men. He saw men as sinners, but as sinners who could be saved. In even the veriest wreck of humanity that crept to his feet he beheld the ruin of a child of his Father, but in no case a hopeless ruin. He perceived in every soiled soul the possibilities of restoration to the image divine. He was in the world as a physician, and had all wisdom and all skill. He knew just what was wrong in each life, and knew also how to cure the disease, how to restore the soul to beauty.
He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness, clear,
And struck his finger on the place,
And said, * Thou ailest here, and here.’”
There were no hopeless cases to his eye, no lives which could not be made whole. Those whom the Pharisees regarded as lost, he saw as straying, wandering sheep; and he was the Good Shepherd who had come to seek them, and bear them back to the fold. In every human soul he found something that was worth saving — he saw the gold of divine life gleaming amid the moral and spiritual debris. Men whom other teachers would have regarded as hopeless, he took, and lifted them up to noble, beautiful life. He took Simon, a rough, swearing fisherman, and, discerning the man in him under all the roughness, called him Peter, a rock, and by wise discipline trained him into majestic strength of manly character and apostolic power. He found Matthew, a publican, an outcast, and seeing the nobility of nature in him beneath his soiled name and reputation, called him to be an apostle, and the writer of the first Gospel. He saw Zaccheus, another outcast, and, looking into his soul, perceived the gleaming gold of Abrahamic virtue shining amid the ruin, and called him to sainthood. One day a woman crept to his feet, and began to wash them with her hot tears. The Pharisee in whose house Jesus was eating knew her to be an abandoned woman, and regarded her unfit for any respectable man to touch. But Jesus saw amid the wrecks of life a soul, and saved her. So he went about continually, perceiving in every life on which his eyes fell material for immortal temple-building.
We see this same marvellous hopefulness in the patience of Jesus toward his disciples. The work of training them would certainly have been discouraging to any other teacher. How could he ever make apostles of such men.? They lacked the elements which seemed essential in the men who were to found a heavenly kingdom in this world. The old evil was forever breaking out in them, marring his work on their lives. But he was never discouraged. He had unfailing faith and infinite patience. At last his faith and patience were justified and rewarded, for after his ascension his apostles went out and filled the world with the story of his mission.
In this unconquerable hopefulness of Jesus there ought to be rich inspiration for all his friends. He never doubted the final triumph of his kingdom, and shall we doubt it y Men are talking pessimistically these days about Christianity, but that was not the spirit which was in the heart of the Master. We should never be discouraged. Old forms may fall away, the old order may change, organizations may grow effete, and lose their efficiency; but the spirit of Christ is unconquerable, and the life of Christ in the world never can fail.
From Christ’s optimism, too, we should get new hope for men. We need more of our Master’s enthusiasm for humanity. No degradation should be regarded as hopeless. From the veriest ruin of a life we should not despair of seeing holy sainthood rising.
Then we should seek to have Christ’s hopefulness in hard conditions and circumstances. We are too easily cast down by trial. We allow ourselves to be weakened by discouragement. We are too easily dismayed. Our Master would have us unaffected by life’s changes, undaunted by earthly losses, with a hope that never fails, and a faith that never wavers.
Through storm and sun the age draws on When heaven and earth shall meet, For the Lord has said that glorious
He will make the place of his feet. And the grass may die on the summer hills,
The flower fade by the river, But our God is the same through endless years, And his word shall stand forever.
* What of the night, O watchman
Set to mark the dawn of day? ’
* The wind blows fair from the morning star,
And the shadows flee away. Dark are the vales, but the mountains glow
As the light its splendor flings, And the Sun of Righteousness comes up
With healing in his wings.’
Shine on, shine on, O blessed Sun,
Through all the round of heaven, Till the darkest vale and the farthest isle
Full to thy light are given.
Till the desert and the wilderness
As Sharon’s plain shall be. And the love of the Lord shall fill the earth
As the waters fill the sea.’*