Three Memorable Days

“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way

of the Lord.” — John i. 23. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

John i. 29. “The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.”

^M^ JOHN i. 37.

jp*^^ •. HABARA lay beyond the Jordan from Jerusalem, W The river there has a breadth of one hundred feet,

jWSM^ and, except at the time of the winter floods, a depth kC^/^*V °^ three to seven feet. It would, therefore, exactly

f suit the purposes of the great preacher, with his rT baptism of repentance. The almost tropical luxuriance of the valley is in striking contrast to the wilderness of sand and hill around.

The attention of the nation was as much arrested by his look as by his words. The spare form attenuated by fasting and austerity; the flashing eye, full of living energy; the unshorn Nazarite locks; the rough haircloth garment; the independence of much that other men hold needful; the thrilling herald voice, piercing like a two-edged sword to divide and discern soul and spirit. It is no matter for wonder, then, that the whole community was stirred; and that crowds poured forth to him from the neighbouring metropolis, as well as from the towns and villages clustering at the foot of the Lebanon.

This time of success and fame lasted for, perhaps, twelve or eighteen months. And then there happened the memorable events described in this paragraph, and which traaispired on three following days (29, 35).

The greater number of those that flocked to hear the Baptist returned to their homes to discuss his words or to live out their new vows; but several of the flower of Israel attached themselves to Jesus permanently. Amongst them was the writer of this Gospel; and he was, without doubt, a witness of the events which he aescribes, the crisis of his own life, and the culminating point of the ministry of his earliest teacher.

I. The First Day: Self- Abnegation (19-28). — As the influence of John’s preaching spread, it became impossible for the religious authorities to ignore it. The Sanhedrim especially, which is constantly referred to in this Gospel as the Jews, and which held itself entrusted with the religious interests of the nation, was compelled to take action. A deputation of Priests and Levites, principally derived from the Pharisee party (24), was therefore arranged to go to the Jordan, make inquiries, and report. Their inquiries were to be twofold: first, who he was; secondly, why he baptized. The former question interested the whole council; the latter, the Pharisees, who were the ritualists of their day.

Imagine a vast circle. On the one side stands the herald of the new age, surrounded by the chivalry of a noble youth; on the other the grey-beards, representing an order of things old and ready to vanish away. How breathless was the silence which followed the first inquiry! “Who art thou? Art thou the Christ?”

Thousands would have been glad to believe he was, and at a word would have unfurled the old standard of the Maccabees, and rallied to rid the land of the usurper. They had not, however, long to wait. Without a moment’s vacillation he confessed, and denied not, but confessed:

“I am not the Christ.”

“Who art thou, then? Malachi told us in his closing words, which have lit our path through the gloom of four hundred years, that the great prophet of Horeb should announce the Messianic day. Art thou Elijah?”

Had they asked if he preceded the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah, he must have answered in the affirmative; but to the question as they put it, there was only one reply:

“I am not.”

There was yet another suggestion. “Moses said that God would raise up a Prophet like unto himself. The Prophet art thou?” “The abruptness of the question,” says Bishop Westcott, “is remarkable.”

And again, amid the hushed suspense, the Baptist, with increasing brevity, answered “No.”

Each response must have been followed by the murmur of many voices discussing it. And the ardent disciples of the great preacher would have felt some little disappointment and chagrin. It seemed as if he were deliberately spurning the nation’s homage, and missing the greatest opportunity of his career.

The suppositions furnished by the generally received Messianic programme were now exhausted; and it only remained to put some general question which should force the Baptist to define his own position. “Then said they unto him. Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?”

Then came an utterance, sublime in its humility: “I am only a voice crying amid the uninhabited places of the wilderness, Prepare a way for the King.”

And this humility was characteristic of John, though he was the greatest of woman-bom. He knew that He was not the Light, but sent to bear witness of it; not the Sun, but the star that announces the dawn, and wanes in the growing light; tiot the Bridegroom, but the Bridegroom’s friend; «£’/the Shepherd, but the porter to open the door into the fold (iii. 27-30; x. 3).

This humility is as rare as it is fascinating. We are all so apt to use our relationship to Christ as a means of enhancing our own importance, and attracting attention. Though we formally ascribe the supremacy to our Lord, we are elated when our name is on every lip, and our work in every thought, even though we should never have been heard of had it not been for Him. But there was nothing of this in John. He had the lowest possible conception of himself. Whilst all men “J iltuat gcrrcaac.” 43

mused in their hearts whether he were the Christ, he was ever heralding the Coming One. As they magnified the worth of his baptism, he declared that it was inferior to the Messiah’s, as water is to fire in cleansing properties. When they trembled before his searching words, he spoke of the great Husbandman, who, fan in hand, was about thoroughly to purge his floor. The motto of his inner life seems to have been, “I must decrease.” Repeatedly he avowed himself unfit even to loose the sandal-thong of Him whose herald he was.

Two things led him to this blessed condition. — ln the first place, he realized that a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven; and that therefore all popularity, gifts, and influence, are precious talents to be administered with the best possible stewardship (iii. 27). And in the second place, he had seen the Lord, as was clear from the answer he gave to the further inquiry of the deputation concerning his right to baptize.

“It is quite true,” said he, in effect, “that I am not the Christ, nor Eiijah, nor that Proph’=’.t; but listen! Though ye know it not, the Messiah is already come, and I have seen Him. He has stood on these banks. He has mingled with these crowds. He has descended into these waters. He is standing amongst you now. The new era has dawned. And therefore I administer baptism, the sign and initiation of that long-expected time.”

What awe must have settled down on the people! How they must have looked on each other, wondering of whom he spake! Could it be that at last the day had come of which kings and prophets and righteous men had spoken, but died without seeing! And can we wonder at the humility of the speaker?

We need to cultivate more of this lovely spirit, content to stand in the shade and cast a light on the blessed Lord; to be voices witnessing for Him, whilst the speaker’s form is draped in gloom. But probably nothing but close friendship with the Bridegroom of souls will ever bring this about. We must live nearer to Him, catching the glow of his love, baptized into its furnace heat. Oh, to love Him, to listen for his footfall with a lover’s hushed spirit, to find our heaven only in his love, and in the thought that He is loved! Then we shall be timid of attracting a single thought to ourselves which might have found its way to Him. Then we shall be eager to hoard up all the love and devotion which men give us, that we may cast them as crowns at his feet. Then we shall be willing to be pedestals from which his beams shine the farther; as the slender, graceful curves of the lighthouse tower are unseen, whilst from its lantern the reflectors flash beams of light far out to sea. It is only to those thus humble as little children that God reveals the true character of his Son. Thus it was with John the Baptist.

II. The Second Day; Christ-Designation (29-34). — “The next day John seeth Jesus coming to him.” He was probably coming straight from the scene of the temptation. For forty days He had been alone, with no companionship save that of wild beasts, amid the sterile hills which stretch for miles on either side of the Dead Sea. Directly John saw Him, he knew Him. “This is He of whom I said. He that cometh after me is become before me, for He was before me.” How did John know Him?

It is probable that, though cousins, they had not met till some six weeks before. John had spent his years in the seclusion of the deserts, Jesus in the highlands of Galilee. Therefore John said, “I knew Him not.” Was it one of the providential arrangements of the only wise God, that the Christ and his forerunner never met until Jesus came to Jordan to be baptized of John, lest it should be said they were acting in collusion? Or even if John may have known Him as his cousin {i.e., after the flesh), yet he knew Him not as the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, or the Son of God. But He who sent him to baptize with water had revealed to him a sacred sign by which he should recognise the Lord whom he announced. For that sign he had watched and waited patiently for a long time. Thousands passed through his hands; but as yet he had not beheld it, and the months seemed long, as th(iy slowly passed away.

(iur |£orii’s §aptism. 45

At last Jesus presented Himself at the Jordan. John would have hindered Him, indeed “was hindering Him.” He, doubtless, knew of the events which had preceded His birth; had heard of “that Holy Thing” which had been born; was familiar with his blameless, holy life; and desired, therefore, to debar Him from a rite which implied confession of sin. He felt that he had himself more need to be baptized as a sinner, than to administer the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins to Him, who was, so far as observation went, sinless.

His objections were, however, silenced by the appeal to him to do his part in bringing in the everlasting righteousness, which Daniel identified with the mission of the Messiah. “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”

It was probably the custom that the candidate for John’s baptism, either audibly or silently, should confess his sins ere he submitted to the sacred rite. But in this case, having no sins of his own, our Lord would probably make a vicarious confession, confessing the sins of the nation, with which, there and then, as the sacrificed lamb He identified Himself. It was the Jewish custom to set apart four days before the lamb was to be sacrificed in the Passover; and thus there may have been an anticipation of this solemn act of our Lord’s baptism in the river Jordan, the river of judgment.

As He emerged from its waters, the long-expected sign was given. The Spirit descended on Him from heaven like a dove. We cannot but recal the ancient record of the deluge, and the ark, and the dove which found no place for her rest. Here at last there was a home in which the dove-like Spirit might take up an abode. Here, at least, was one heart in which He, who had been long an exile, might settle. From the waste of waters He came to the sacred Ark.

Twice over we are told that “He abode on Him.” No fitful enduement this! No transient baptism! No ephemeral experience! For us, too, as for Him, there is an abiding experience to be enjoyed — an experience of spiritual grace to break on us; not to wane, as in the case of some of the Old Testament heroes, but to increase in ever-growing power from year to year, until we are filled unto all the fulness of God.

We may not stay to note the energy with which the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted. How marvellous that union of brooding gentleness and irresistible driving force! As if the blessed Spirit — who had waited with the patience of God for four thousand years, while, in one dispensation after another, man was continually overcome by the tempter — now that the Second Man was come, impelled Him to the victory which He foreknew. It was from this conflict that He returned on the second of these memorable days.

For six weary weeks the Baptist had eagerly scanned the faces of the crowds to discover that face. But hitherto in vain. At last he descried it — worn with conflict and fasting, but radiant with victory; and as he saw it, he announced the Christ: “This is He of whom I spake. The same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. Behold the Lamb of God, which beareth away the sin of the world.”

Dean Milman suggests that when John, beholding Jesus as He came to him, said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” he alluded to flocks of lambs, intended for the forthcoming Passover, then passing from the rich pastures of Perea to Jerusalem by the ford hear the scene of the Baptist’s labours. But surely there is a deeper thought. John was clearly a deep student of Isaiah’s prophecies. He cannot but have been quite familiar with that chapter which reads like a fifth Gobpel, as it foretells how the servant of the Lord would be led as a lamb to the slaughter, an allusion which, of course, was based on the offering of the morning and evening lamb, and on the great Paschal Feast, which lay at the foundation of the national history.

We cannot stay to trace the complete analogy between the lambs and the Lamb, between the Passover and the supreme event of our Redemption. The points of likeness and contrast are deeply interesting. But we must let that witness of the Holy Ghost, through those human lips, have its due weight with us. Evidently the main aspect in which we are to view our Divine Lord, is in His sacrificial character. “The Lamb as it had been slain” must be beheld both here and hereafter, in this world and in all worlds. Not his character, however fair; “§cljolii tijc famb of (So5!” 47

not his words, however much light they cast on the mysteries of life and death; not his miracles, however strong their testimony to his Divine mission: but his appointment to bear the sin of the world, this is the primary aspect in which we are to behold Him.

Look into these words; the Gospel glistens in them, as the whole sun in a single dewdrop. They tell us that the sacrifice of the cross is the outcome of the thought and preparation of the infinite God. Jesus is the Lamb of God. They remind us that his propitiation for sin is not for ours only, but for the whole world. They give a clue to the cause of that mysterious anguish which at times overwhelmed Him. They describe the attitude which we should ever adopt of beholding Him — an attitude by which we are able to appropriate the nutriment of his flesh and blood, of which the paschal supper was a type. O blessed Lamb! what shall we say of Thee or to Thee? Words fail us. Thou wast made sin for us. Thou hast washed us from our sins in thy blood. Thou hast put away sin by the sacrifice of Thyself. Thou art longing that every soul of man should know and rejoice in thy yearning love, thy glorious work. We praise, and adore, and worship Thee. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!

But remember ever to unite the double burden of John’s preaching. We need not only blood, but fire. It is much to be justified, but we need to be sanctified; much to know of the atoning death, but we need union with the Lamb in his resurrection life; much to have the blood sprinkled on the inner shrine, but we need that the Shekinah fire should burn there with quenchless power; much to have the baptism of water, but at the best that is negative, and we need something positive, searching, quickening, and God-like.

After all, John was right. Christ is the greater Baptizer, Beyond death and the grave He received the Spirit, that He might shed Him forth. And now He stands among us whom He has redeemed, eager that, having washed us in his blood. He may complete what He has begun with that holy baptism of which John spake, and which is as much our privilege as the cleansing of the blood. Ah! brethren and sisters, we have need to be baptized of Him. Not the blood without the fire; not the fire apart from the blood. Not the Christ of Calvary only, but the Christ of the throne. Not pardon alone, but deliverance and salvation.

But let us remember that just as Jesus could not be manifested to Israel, until John had come baptizing in water (31); so it is still. John the Baptist must still do his work in the soul. And only when there has been repentance and confession of sin. which submission to John’s baptism signified, is a sinner prepared to receive the Saviour. There is profound truth in that saying of McCheyne, “Only a broken-hearted sinner can receive a crucified Christ.”

This suggests a very serious question to many who have no clear consciousness of Chris!;, no glad realization of his presence, no rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory. May not this lack arise from their not having entered into the meaning of those preliminary conditions which were represented by the Baptist? Only as we know the sinfulness of sin, and the preciousness of the atoning blood of Christ, can we apprehend the power of his resurrection and rejoice in the hope of his coming and his kingdom. May God the Holy Spirit make us a people prepared for the Lord (Luke i. 17).

in. The Third Day; Disciple-Desertion (35-37)- — On the third day John again looked wistfully and eagerly on Jesus as He walked. It was perhaps the last time those eyes were to behold Him. Again he designated Jesus as the Lamb of God; but there was a significance in his words which was instantly detected by the two disciples who stood beside him. He meant by those words to transfer their allegiance from him to his Lord. Henceforth they were to behold Him. So at least they seem to have understood him, “They followed Jesus.”

As the preacher looked on their retreating forms, and realised that his work was done, and that henceforth all the crowds would follow them and ebb away, did he have a feeling of jealousy or regret? Evidently not. Or if there were a momentary sense of desolation and loneliness, it must have

Wviinzas of foj. 4g

been instantly wiped out by a great sense of joy. To quote bis own matchless words, “This my joy therefore is fulfilled ’ (in. 29).

It is sad to see the crowds depart; to note the drying of the brook whose waters were so sweet, the ebbing of the tide, the waning of the day, the falling of the leaves; but, where the ‘soul has learnt to live in Jesus and for Him, it is not so hard to die to all these things, because the Lord has become its light and its salvation, the strength of its life and its everlasting joy.