Honouring the King's Soldier
“Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy” (Phil. ii. 29, 30).
That is how we are to treat Epaphroditus when he comes our way. First of all, our reception is to be hallowed by the conscious presence of the Lord Himself. It is to be “in the Lord.” The Apostle Paul will not have us merely applaud the minister, as though his doings were a purely human achievement, with no secret correspondence in the Lord. We are far too ready to applaud the servant and forget the Master, to indulge in flattering words rather than engage in reverent praise. It is one of the perils of our time, and one which our religious press has greatly intensified.
Epaphroditus of our day is dragged before the gaze of the envious or admiring crowd; his articles of dress are described, his oddities of manner, his private habits, his personal sorrows, his recreations, — until, in the multitude of trivialities, the servant’s Lord is crowded out. How different is all this from the reception we are now considering. Epaphroditus must be received “in the Lord.” The light of that August Presence is to fill the scene, and in that pure radiance all petty personal trivialities will be eclipsed.
When Christ’s Presence is realised in the reception, it will be the Christliness of His servant which will shine in the light; we shall look from the One to the other, from the Sun to its reflection, and our souls will instinctively assume the attitude of homage, and our words of eulogy will be spoken with reverence on our knees.
A reception of this kind will most inevitably unseal the fountains of joy. If we only flatter a man, we may drink the perilous waters of self-satisfaction; if we receive him “in the Lord,” “with joy” shall we draw water “out of the wells of salvation.” When we receive “in the Lord,” we shall also be glad in the Lord.
“’And hold such in honour.” We impoverish ourselves when we withhold honour from the honourable. For here is a great law of life; when we truly honour the honourable we become identified with it. When we honour genuine nobility we enlist ourselves in the same chivalrous order. No man can pay true homage to a hero without, in the very homage, acquiring something of the heroic spirit. And so our mode of reception constitutes our measure of receptiveness. We appropriate what we approve, and while I honour Epaphroditus I am growing into his likeness. “He that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man’s reward.” And so my homage is not something detached and external, something which has no vital correspondence with my own life; it establishes a kind of highroad along which the glory or shame of my brother passes inevitably into my own soul. When a man honours a good man he becomes enriched by the homage.
“Because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.” And this is why I should hold him in honour — because he himself honoured his Lord above all things. He went “nigh unto death,” staking his very life “for the work of Christ.” So many of us are anaemic in our spiritual ventures, there is little or no blood in them. We take up the work of Christ, but our service is not vitalised by the sacrifice of our life. And so our work is never really alive; it is sometimes galvanised into the appearance of life, but the activity is only artificial, and it never communicates life to others. The measure of sacrifice in our labour is just the measure of our dynamic. No blood, no life; no life, no power. When we hazard our life in the service our power is superlative, for we then engage the mighty, co-operative ministry of the Lord who shed His blood for all men.
Epaphroditus did not turn back when his own Calvary loomed before him. He strode out, and climbed the ominous hill with a song. All the great servants of God have put their all into the venture, and in the holy crusade have dared the world, the flesh, and the devil. They have never staggered at the cost; they have never flinched at the demand of blood; they have called out all their reserves, and their last ounce of energy has been gladly consecrated to the cause of their Master’s Kingdom. Of men and women of this splendid type it has been truly said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Yes, every drop of sacrificial blood is a seed of infinite potency, and it will work for ever and for ever in the glorious Church of our Lord. No drop is ever lost — waste fully spilled upon the heedless ground. “He that loseth his life shall find it.”
Epaphroditus was never nearer to his Lord than when he came “nigh unto death” for the work of the Lord. We approach our Lord by the altar stairs of sacrifice. And so, when Epaphroditus began to suffer, he also began to “enter into the joy of his Lord.” “When the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also.” As soon as we become partakers of the sufferings, we most assuredly become partakers of the glory.