Lectionary Calendar
Saturday, January 18th, 2025
the First Week after Epiphany
the First Week after Epiphany
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Bible Commentaries
Hastings' Great Text of the Bible Hastings' Commentary
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Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliographical Information
Hastings, James. "Commentary on John 21". Hastings' Great Text of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/gtb/john-21.html. 1915.
Hastings, James. "Commentary on John 21". Hastings' Great Text of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/
Whole Bible (48)New Testament (18)Gospels Only (4)Individual Books (12)
Verses 15-17
Love and Service
So when they had broken their fast, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again a second time, Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Tend my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.— John 21:15-17.
Who that takes any delight at all in the Bible does not take delight in the twenty-first chapter of St. John? Who has not felt the benignant spell of that narrative, in its indescribable simplicity and depth, its gracious beauty and its soul-penetrating power? Willingly we follow the last Apostle as he recounts to us, in his uttermost age, with the photographic precision of an old man’s recollection of his prime, that wonderful memory. He leads us as if into the very landscape of the Syrian lake. We embark with him in the boat, as if we heard the rattle of the oars, and the lap of the ripples on the sides. We “ply the watery task” with him and his comrades, as if we saw the vernal stars reflected under our eyes in the dusky mirror of the deep. Their weariness and disappointment, as the night wanes and they have taken nothing, are as if our own. And then comes up the morning over the dark hills of Moab, and there stands a Figure on the solitary beach, and there are callings to and fro between beach and boat; and the nets are full and heavy on a sudden, and the disciple plunges into the water, to swim and wade to his master’s feet. The whole group soon gathers round the fire of coals; the fast is broken; and then there is a colloquy about love, and labour, and martyrdom, and following. We have seen it, heard it, shared it all.
It was my happiness a few years ago to set eyes upon the Lake of Galilee, gazing with strange emotions upon the waters and the mountain-shores from the garden of the Scottish Mission Hospital (scene of a noble work for God) at Tiberias, and afterwards from a boat, built probably on lines unaltered for two thousand years, and worked by fishermen, clad probably in the very fashion of the Apostles. Wonderful was the charm of the thought that this was indeed the scene of the Gospels; the eyes of the Son of Man knew just those outlines of cliff, and field, and shore, and that snowy dome of Hermon looking on from the northern horizon. His feet trod this shell-wrought strand, aye, and the waves too into which those smooth waters can be tossed so soon. Somewhere yonder, on the further side (for surely it was on that more solitary margin), this last scene of St. John’s narrative was enacted; there was kindled the ruddy fire, there the water flashed into silver as Simon Peter wrestled his way through. Along that shore, whose line lies so distinct between lake and hills, he followed the steps of Jesus, and turned to see John following too. It was a moving thing to look thus with waking eyes on the region as it is. Yet, such is the power, the artless magic, of the narrative of the Apostle, that I know not whether the actual gain to realization was very great. The Gospel had created so visible a landscape that the eyes had less to add to the picture than I had hoped. 1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, The Secret of the Presence, 144.]
1. The occasion.—The time is morning; morning so full of memories, so full of hope and high resolve. The mists are clearing from the lake and shore: the darkness is passing away, stirred by the fresh breeze of dawn. There are together those whose names are so often found associated; Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the two sons of Zebedee. They are on the sea of Tiberias, fishing just as before Christ called them to be fishers of men. The fruitless night-toil, and their success when in obedience to Christ they cast their net on the right side of the ship, were fitted to remind them of His former miracle, and of their former call. John marks, as significant of a difference between this and the former miracle, that for all the fishes were so many, yet did not the net break—a hopeful difference, promising that their new mission should be better than the old. Called anew to draw men to Christ, they shall be better preachers than they were; they shall not “catch men” for the Kingdom, they shall be enabled to bring them all in and retain them in the Kingdom. The months that have gone by, seemingly so fruitless—months during which they made so many blunders, months which appeared to come to so entire a close in the death of their Master—have not gone by for nothing. Their past experience, their blunders and anxieties and sorrows, all will be seen to have fitted them for their new work, when again the Lord shall bid them to it. This, at least, we shall see to be true of St. Peter; three times reminded of his weakness, three times made to feel the pains of penitence, he is each time bidden to tend the flock. He will be better able to tend the flock because of what he has learnt of his feebleness and folly.
The narrative seems to me full of subtle suggestions. It illustrates our Christian life, which is ever new, yet ever old; full of strange events, the meaning of which becomes, as we muse upon them, familiar and intelligible. Every daybreak shows us the old world under new aspects; the objects which loom so strangely in the obscurity, we see, as we gaze on them, to be quite familiar. In the dim morning light, the disciples knew not that it was Jesus who stood on the shore; perhaps some mysterious change had passed upon Him in the grave, the risen Saviour not appearing quite like the Master whom they had followed; but the miracle revealed that it was He. It was a new call with which He presently bade them, but it was the fulfilment of His first bidding, “Follow me.” It was a new miracle He wrought, a new experience through which they were passing now; but how thoroughly was it the same as what had gone before! It is this constant freshness and changeless identity of life, this novelty of circumstance having in it the old meaning of love and grace, the new duty which is but a repetition of the old call, which makes us rejoice in the one purpose we perceive ever enlarging and fulfilling itself. It is as we recognize, “I am the same, and God is the same amid all changes,” that we rest amid ceaseless variation, and learn the lessons to which, day by day, God is opening our ears. 1 [Note: A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, 174.]
2. The language.—The passage is marked in the original by a variety of language which does not appear in the English translation. There are two different Greek words for each of the English words “love,” “know,” and “feed,” and three Greek words for “sheep” or “lambs.” And there is significance in other words besides these. Take them separately—
(1) “Simon, Son of John.” The Master’s use of the old name “Simon,” instead of the new name, “Peter,” was suggestive of much. It was not to imply that he had forfeited all right to the new name; but it was a gentle reminder to him of the weakness which had led to his denial; and it would recall to him the Master’s words before his fall, when He purposely abstained from giving him the name that implied firmness and strength, but used instead the old name, “Simon,” which bore to “Peter” the same relation as “ Jacob” (the “supplanter”) bore to “ Israel” (the “prince of God”)—“Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” Very lovingly had Jesus already assured the penitent disciple of His forgiveness. One of the first messages He sent as the Risen One was a message specially to Peter. One of the first private interviews He gave to any disciple was given to Peter; and from that interview he must have come away knowing himself to be a fully pardoned man. Still, the use of the old name here again must have gone to Peter’s heart, making him think, with new shame and sorrow, of his old self-confidence and pride.
(2) “Lovest thou me?” The distinctions between the two Greek verbs used are various and delicate; but they may all be traced to the radical difference between them. It is not a difference in the warmth, but in the character, of affection. The one signifies the love based upon appreciation of another; the other simple personal attachment. The one word would express the love that would give itself up for another; the second word that which gives itself up to another. The one would be a confident, the other a confiding love. In this narrative the one might be represented if, in English, we said, “I am thy friend”; the other, if we said, “Thou art my friend.” It is the former of these words that Christ here uses: “Simon, son of Jonas, esteemest thou me more, art thou more my friend, than thy fellow disciples?” This was just what Peter had professed, “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.” “I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.” “Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.”
We can now understand Peter’s reply. Once he would have said, “I know that I am Thy friend.” Once he did assert his knowledge of himself against Christ’s knowledge of him; he was sure he was to be trusted. But he has lost his self-confidence. He cannot compare himself with others now. He will not even assert himself to be a friend, ready to devote himself for Christ’s sake; he will not profess esteem for Jesus. He chooses the humbler, trustful word: “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.”
Again, Christ asks him, “If not more than these, yet art thou my friend at all? Is there any of the active devoted love in thee? any of the passion that will assert itself on my behalf?” And still the same humble, clinging answer comes from Peter. Even this he will not affirm. How can he profess what he is ready for? How can he be confident who has so painfully learnt that there is nothing for him but meekly and gratefully to trust in Jesus? “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.”
Now, Christ takes Peter’s own word: He will not wound him by reminding him of his past boastful professions; let it be as Peter would have it, the trusting affection of the disciple. “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” “Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?” Surely Jesus cannot doubt that. He must know that the disciple clings to his Lord. Christ must know that He is all in all to Peter. He saith unto Him, “Lord, thou knowest all things; Thou seest my heart, Thou knowest what sort of a man I was and am, how vain my self-confidence; Thou knowest me to be weak, rash, changeful; but Thou knowest, too, that under all my boasting, all my mistakes, there was love for Thee, and that it remains. Lord, Thou knowest that I cannot make professions, that I am heart-sick of professions, but Thou knowest that this is true; thou knowest that I love Thee.”
And this confession Christ accepts; this confession He ever will accept. Distinguish between the profession of love to Christ and the confession of it. In profession the person most prominent in our thoughts is “I, who make it”; in confession, “He, whose name I am confessing.” The confession of love to Christ is the sweetest language that can fall from human lips; it shows that the life has found its rest and meaning. Christ is known, and He will keep faithful to all eternity; He will solace in all tribulation, and succour in all difficulty; He will guide with His counsel, and afterwards receive to glory, every meek soul that utters it. The profession of love to Christ is painful to hear. It is full of danger; it is boastful, self-confident. He who makes it will have, by many a sore trial, through many a bitter experience of failure, to come to a humbler mind. It is not in what we are to Christ, but in what Christ is to us, that our rest and security lie.
Observe the period of Peter’s life when this confession is made. It is not his earliest confession; he has been brought to it through painful self-knowledge; it is the utterance of a tried maturity. It is a custom among many Christians to demand this as a pass-word to Christian fellowship; to refuse the recognition of discipleship to all who cannot utter it. I cannot think that this is wise. To set young converts on an estimate of their feeling towards the Saviour, instead of encouraging them to trust in Him, is full of peril. Christian discipleship sometimes begins with love to Christ; and singularly blessed are they with whom it does. But in other ways souls are drawn to Christ: the weary go to Him for rest, the guilty for pardon, the helpless for succour; the dissatisfied, who long for a better life, seek the life that is in Christ. Such will say, “I trust in Christ,” “I have found Christ,” “I am following Christ”; but the words, perhaps, halt on their lips, “I love Christ.” It is not for us to insist on their utterance. They are not for our ears, but for His. And He knows how, from the trusting, the obedient, and the earnest, to draw at length the full confession, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” 1 [Note: A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, 178.]
(3) “Feed my lambs.” There is variation in Christ’s thrice repeated charge—” Feed my lambs,” “Shepherd my sheep,” “Feed my little sheep.” All were to be cared for, and all modes of watchfulness and help were to be displayed. Fold as well as feed them; guide and guard and heal them; keep them from straying, strengthen the feeble, bind up the bruised, bring again that which is driven away, seek that which is lost.
3. Three questions, three answers, and three commands.—In this story St. Peter has been already three times the foremost. To him the Lord speaks, now not for the first time singling him out.
(1) The first question is, “Lovest thou me more than these?” These words refer to an earlier time, the time when He had said to the disciples, “All ye shall be offended because of me this night,” and St. Peter had replied, “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.” Yet he had fled with the rest. And when he came back to the house where his Lord was being tried, he three times denied Him. Was this like loving Him more than the rest? Yet, again, his recent act might be looked at as a sign of his character, his leaping from the ship into the sea, and dragging the net alone. These words therefore did not convey a real reproach, but a lesson: the love might be the greatest, yet also the least to be trusted. There was a good beginning, but it had not ripened into its proper nature. St. Peter had learnt something by those humbling days. He answers “Yea”; he could do that unflinchingly; but he dares not claim to be above his brethren; he drops, in answering, all allusion to them. Christ simply replies, “Feed my lambs.” He craved no personal cleaving to Himself, as man cleaves to man. He spoke only as the shepherd of the sheep, whose whole care was for the sheep for whom He had died. Such also must be the care of those who love Him. Henceforth St. Peter must show his love by his anxiety to sustain the life of other men; that was to be the test of his love.
(2) A second time Christ repeats the question; but now He needs not to recall the old boast; He leaves out the words, “more than these.” He would ask, putting aside all comparison with others, “Canst thou say that thou lovest me?” The answer is the same as before—a full acknowledgment that He is Lord, a firm persuasion that his Lord knows him. Again Christ replies, slightly altering the expression, “Tend my sheep.” Not only the lambs, the weak and ignorant, had to be fed, but even the strong and wise ones, the full-grown sheep, had to be ruled and guided. Mere pity for the helpless lambs was not enough. St. Peter must not think that there were any to whom he owed no duty.
(3) Once more Christ renews the question. Three times St. Peter had denied Him, and three times his love is to be proved. St. Peter’s impatience breaks out. He thought it enough that Christ should try him once or at most twice. “He was grieved”; he exclaimed at the seeming needlessness of the question: “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee”—Thou canst find out whether I love Thee or not. This is but a small thing, a part of the Lord’s all-embracing knowledge. But Christ will not let go the former command; He repeats, “Feed my sheep”; all alike need support as well as guidance.
The reiteration in the interrogation did not express doubt as to the veracity of the answer, nor dissatisfaction with its terms; but it did express, and was meant to suggest to St. Peter and to the others, that the threefold denial needed to be obliterated by the threefold confession; and that every black mark that had been scored deep on the page by that denial needed to be covered over with the gilding or bright colouring of the triple acknowledgment. And so thrice having said, “I know him not!” Jesus, with a gracious violence, forced him to say thrice, “Thou knowest that I love thee.” 1 [Note: A. Maclaren, After the Resurrection, 78.]
How pleasant to me thy deep-blue wave,
O Sea of Galilee!
For the glorious One who came to save
Hath often stood by thee.
Fair are the lakes in the land I love,
Where pine and heather grow:
But thou hast loveliness far above
What Nature can bestow.
It is not that the wild gazelle
Comes down to drink thy tide:
But He that was pierced to save from hell
Oft wander’d by thy side.
It is not that the fig-tree grows,
And palms, in thy soft air,
But that Sharon’s fair and bleeding Rose
Once spread its fragrance there.
Graceful around thee the mountains meet,
Thou calm, reposing sea;
But ah, far more! the beautiful feet
Of Jesus walk’d o’er thee.
And was it beside this very sea
The new-risen Saviour said
Three times to Simon, “Lovest thou Me?
My lambs and sheep then feed”?
O Saviour! gone to God’s right hand!
Yet the same Saviour still,
Graved on Thy heart is this lovely strand,
And every fragrant hill.
Oh, give me, Lord, by this sacred wave,
Threefold Thy love divine,
That I may feed, till I find my grave,
Thy flock—both Thine and mine! 1 [Note: R. M. M‘Cheyne.]
4. Thus Jesus thrice addressed the same question to St. Peter with apparently slight and yet significant variations. To that question he always received the same answer, only again with apparently slight modifications. And with equally slight changes the replies were followed up by seemingly the same injunctions. Yet, trifling as the variations appear to be—the questions slightly differing, the answers slightly differing, the counsels also slightly differing—there is a touching spiritual story in them, full of evangelical meaning and of deep spiritual interest.
The truths contained in the text are these—
I. Love is the Inspiration of Service.
II. Service is the Fulfilment of Love.
I
Love as the Inspiration of Service
Love, love to Christ, which is the one sure spring of love to men, is the foundation of service. It is the first condition of the Divine charge, and the second, and the third. It is the spirit of the new Covenant which burns not to consume but to purify. In the prospect of work for others or for ourselves we can always hear the one question in the stillness of our souls, “Lovest thou me?” Love may not, can not, be attained in its fulness at once; but the Person of Christ, if indeed we see Him as He is presented to us in the Gospels, will kindle that direct affection out of which it comes. If our hearts were less dull we could not study the changing scenes of His unchanging love, or attempt to describe them to others, without answering the silent appeal which they make to us in St. Peter’s words: Lord, thou knowest that I love thee; yes, and still more those who are Thine and not mine, those who fall under my influence in the various relations of life, for Thy sake.
1. Love is first and fundamental.—How significant and beautiful it is that the only thing that Jesus Christ cares to ask about is the man’s love! We might have expected: “Simon, son of Jonas, are you sorry for what you did? Simon, son of Jonas, will you promise never to do the like any more?” No. These things will come if the other thing is there: “Lovest thou me?” Jesus Christ desires from each of us, not obedience primarily, not repentance, not vows, not conduct, but a heart; and that being given, all the rest will follow. This is the distinguishing characteristic of Christian morality, that Jesus seeks first for the surrender of the affections, and believes, and is warranted in the belief, that if these are surrendered, all else will follow; and love being given, loyalty and service and repentance and hatred of self-will and of self-seeking will follow in her train.
No other religion presents anything which resembles this invitation to give God the heart. Give me thy observances, says the God of Pharisaism. Give me thy personality, says the God of Hegel. Give me thy reason, says the God of Kant. It remains for the God of Jesus Christ to say, Give Me thine heart. He makes it the essence and the glory of His doctrine. With Him to give the heart to God is not merely an obligation of piety; it is its root, its beginning, its middle, its end. 1 [Note: Adolphe Monod.]
“Lovest thou me?” It is a question that goes down very deep; for it goes down to the eternal springs of all life. It is God’s and Nature’s great secret; and man’s only hope. Love is life, hatred is death. Love, in its essence, is attraction, combination, sympathy, blending. It is so even in what we call the unconscious world of matter. God’s immense laboratory, the Universe, so far as we know it, is the ceaseless arena of love-attractions and blendings. There is never an atom that is content alone; never a molecule that is at rest in its isolation; never a crystal that is not flashed into form by aspiration; never a leaf or bud or blade of grass that does not reach out after its beloved; never a throb that is not responded to throughout all space. Gravitation itself is like the ceaseless infinite breathing of an all-pervading Lover—attracting all things to itself. Throughout the Universe, so far as we can penetrate, every atom is crying to every other, “Lovest thou me?” Science calls it “affinity.” We might just as well call it “love.”
Everywhere, too, Nature—the great patient Mother—stands waiting for the lover’s appeal. It is true that we can capture many of her treasures without affection; but never her joys and benedictions so. She is very wonderful in her teachings, and very gracious in her consolations to her lovers; but there must be love if there is to be communion. You will only be miserable in her solitudes if you are without love. Night and day she whispers to the wanderer, “Lovest thou me?” Emerson was right. We get her stare—not her music—because we love her not. You accuse Nature of cruelty; you say,
Nature has miscarried wholly
Into failure, into folly.
Alas! thine is the bankruptcy
Blessed Nature so to see.
These young atheists
Who invade our hills
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers,
And human fortunes in astronomy,
And an omnipotence in chemistry,
Preferring things to names, for these were men,
Were unitarians of the united world,
And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell,
They caught the footsteps of the Same. Our eyes
Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars,
And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,
And strangers to the plant and to the mine.
The injured elements say, “Not in us”;
And night and day, ocean and continent,
Fire, plant and mineral say, “Not in us”;
And haughtily return us stare for stare.
For we invade them impiously for gain,
We devastate them unreligiously,
And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.
Therefore they shove us from them; yield to us
Only what to our griping toil is due;
But the sweet affluence of love and song,
The rich results of the divine consents
Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover,
The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;
And, in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves
And pirates of the universe, shut out
Daily to a more thin and outward rind,
Turn pale and starve.
We praise the “strong men,” the empire-makers, the remorseless soldiers, the commercial pioneers; and, indeed, they have their mission, and some of them deserve their meed of praise; but these are not the great instruments of nature and of God. The poets, the artists, the moralists, the idealists, the Buddhas, the Christs, the lovers, are the saviours of the world.
“Lovest thou me?” is the question which determines every stage of evolution. From beast to man, and from the beast-man to the angel-man—all is a question of love. Until love comes, no high manhood comes, and, by so much as love lingers, the beast lingers. “Lovest thou me?” is the preliminary question which is the secret of that Divine Shekinah, that symbol of the Divine Presence—the Home. “Lovest thou me?” whispers about all the subsidences of family feuds, and tribal isolations, and clannish spite, and class pride, and national greed. It is the mightiest factor in true nation-making; it is the life and soul of sane and sober patriotism; it is the advance-guard, the evangel, of the great ideal—the Brotherhood of Man. In fine, it is that which determines all the upward evolutionary stages of the race. 1 [Note: J. P. Hopps, Sermons of Life and Love, 7.]
In simple and homely ways see how true it is that love is life and joy and progress. It is nothing to accumulate treasure, and to surround yourself with splendid defences against the intrusions of the careworn world, if you have a loveless and careworn heart. There is profound truth in Hood’s quaintly humorous but pathetically serious lines concerning
Love that sweetens sugarless tea,
And makes contentment and joy agree
With the coarsest boarding and bedding;
Love that no golden ties can attach,
But nestles under the humblest thatch,
And will fly away from an Emperor’s match,
To dance at a Penny Wedding. 2 [Note: Ibid. 12.]
It is amazing to find how Christ simplifies religion and morality and reduces them to their elemental terms. He deliberately stakes everything on this single qualification. “Lovest thou me?” is His sole test for discipleship. It seems as if nothing else seriously mattered in His judgment, compared with this one master passion of the soul. “Lovest thou me?”—will there be any other question for us to answer at the last assize? 1 [Note: T. H. Darlow, The Upward Calling, 322.]
What is the beginning? Love. What the course? Love still.
What is the goal? The goal is Love on the happy hill.
Is there nothing then but Love, search we sky or earth?
There is nothing out of Love hath perpetual worth:
All things flag but only Love, all things fail or flee;
There is nothing left but Love worthy you and me. 2 [Note: C. G. Rossetti.]
Let me take this as my Master’s question to myself; and see how deep it goes, not only into my feelings, but into my life. For it is not,” Believest thou Me?” or “Understandest thou Me?” or “Confessest thou Me?” or “Obeyest thou Me?” or even, “Servest thou Me?” It goes closer home. It is, “ Lovest thou Me?”; and all these other things may be where love is not. Again, He does not ask, “Lovest thou My word?” or “Lovest thou My work?” or “Lovest thou My brethren?” He asks, “Lovest thou Me?” And yet again, He does not ask, “Art thou in the company of those that love Me?” He will not let me shelter myself by losing myself in a crowd who all profess to love Him. He brings me out into the light, to stand alone, and asks, “Lovest thou Me?” 3 [Note: G. H. Knight, The Master’s Questions to His Disciples, 355.]
2. Love is a personal affection.—From our own experience we know that love, as the best and utmost expression of our own personality, can find a worthy object only in another personality. No person can really love a thing. In easy-going speech a man talks of loving his family or his country. But it is never strictly true. What he really loves is each individual person belonging to his family or nation. There is no more difficulty in loving six than in loving two. But he can by no possibility love even one, unless that one be, like himself, a living person,—or at least potentially such, as is the new-born babe,—capable first of appreciating and then of reciprocating the self which, as with outstretched hands, a person offers when he loves. Nothing else, nothing less than this, is meant by Christ’s doctrine of the love of God. Its true significance and expression are for ever found in what St. Paul said concerning Christ Himself—“Who loved me and gave himself up for me.” That Divine love should be thus truly focused, without mistake and without difficulty, in each individual human being, is the distinctive, wonderful, awful assertion of the Christian gospel alone of all the religions upon earth.
3. Love is reciprocal.—Jesus was not thinking only of Simon Peter when He asked him, “Lovest thou me?” He was as truly thinking of Himself, and He was revealing to His denying and yet true servant the longing his Lord and Master had for his love. Indeed, this yearning for a return of affection is of the essence of all true love. We cannot love any one very dearly without desiring that our love should find an answering response in the heart thus loved, and it is because Jesus loves His own disciples so deeply that He seeks for their love as the one sweet requital for His own to them. It is this longing of the loving heart for love that explains, in part at all events, the first great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” The love of God for man goes forth to seek the answering love of man for God; and the sin and guilt of a cold and loveless heart are never fully and rightly felt until we realize that want of love to God is not only an injury to ourselves, but is an injury done to God.
Love that is centred in a personality can be satisfied with nothing less and nothing else than the reciprocating love of that person. On our own little human scale this is at once the glory and the tragedy of life. Its default is even more dreadful than death, as numberless poor pitiful suicides have testified. The old word is as true and tender, as fierce and insatiable as ever, “If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned.” If, as we sit in peace and comfort at the sweetest feast, or the liveliest entertainment, or the most solemn service, a voice that we could not doubt whispered in our ear that the one we loved most felt towards us no love in return, then the poet would be bitterly, crushingly true who wrote—
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one,
Yet the light of a whole world dies
With the setting sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one,
But the light of a whole life dies
If love be done. 1 [Note: F. Ballard, Does it Matter what a Man Believes? 76.]
4. Love is unselfish.—“Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” I do not doubt your love. I did not doubt it even in the moment of your sad fall, but it was not that supreme affection to which I was entitled. You loved Me, but you really loved yourself better, and put your own desires before My will. Events, however, have been teaching you, experience has been leading you to truer views of Me and of yourself; tell Me now do you love Me? Is your love prepared now to sacrifice everything for Me, and in the event of others coming into a competition with Me, are you willing to give Me the preference, to yield to Me the first place in your heart? That is the only love Jesus can regard with complacence.
A German mystic in the fifteenth century, John of Goch, thus stated the relation between love and self. “What wings are to a bird, love is to us. They seem to add weight to the body: in reality, however, they elevate it into the air. In like manner the yoke of love, when imposed upon our sensuous nature, not only does not weigh it down, but lifts the spirit with the senses to heavenly things. Take from them their wings, and you take from birds the power of flying. Even so, separate love from the will, and the will is made incapable of every act that transcends nature.” Nevertheless how rarely we reckon those Christians to be in the front rank of the Church who are distinguished by nothing else except their immense power of affection. We still reserve the chief seats in our synagogues for the eloquent speakers, the munificent givers, the superior spiritual personages, who may fall far below others in simple, unwearying, self-forgetful tenderness. 2 [Note: T. H. Darlow, The Upward Calling, 320.]
II
Service as the Fulfilment of Love
The presence or absence in us of the love of Christ is not only an index to our present state, but a prophecy of all that is to be. The love of Christ was that which enabled and impelled the Apostles to live great and energetic lives. It was this simple affection which made a life of aggression and reformation possible to them. This gave them the right ideas and the sufficient impulse. And it is this affection which is open to us all and which equally now as at first impels to all good. Let the love of Christ possess any soul and that soul cannot avoid being a blessing to the world around. Christ scarcely needed to say to Peter, “Feed My sheep; be helpful to those for whom I died,” because in time Peter must have seen that this was his calling. Love gives us sympathy and intelligence. Our conscience is enlightened by sympathy with the persons we love; through their desires, which we wish to gratify, we see higher aims than our own, aims which gradually become our own. And wherever the love of Christ exists, there sooner or later will the purposes of Christ be understood, His aims be accepted, His fervent desire and energetic endeavour for the highest spiritual condition of the race become energetic in us and carry us forward to all good.
1. Service is the natural outlet of love.—The right conduct of the life is a consequence and fruit of the Incarnation. Incarnation is a name for nothing at all unless it be the name not only of the historic event but also of a personal experience, the entry of the Divine into the human energies of the man who declares that he believes rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accordingly to say that a man has the love of Christ is to say, in humaner and more concrete speech, that the Incarnation has been actualized in particular life, that Christ is born in him, that the power of the life from heaven has been poured into this channel.
For him who would take on him the office of a pastor, the question is suggested, Why do you undertake the office? Is it from love of Christ, and from a sense of the obligation to show your gratitude for what He has done for you, in the way which He has commanded—namely, by services to His sheep? If any are actuated by lower motives they have reason to fear that they lie under the woe which, through the mouth of Ezekiel, God denounced against the shepherds who feed themselves and not the flock; who allow the flock to wander through the mountains, and on every high hill, and to be scattered on the face of the earth, while none searcheth or looketh after them. 1 [Note: G. Salmon, Cathedral and University Sermons, 55.]
2. Service is love’s evidence.—In giving St. Peter the charge, “Feed my lambs; feed my sheep,” Christ was guarding him against a danger to which he was at this moment liable, the danger of sinking down into an indulgence of sentiment, of dwelling upon the words, “Thou knowest that I love thee,” and forfeiting in this sweet humiliation his calling as an Apostle, and its prize. There is a subtle charm in self-humiliation, an ensnaring luxury of penitence. We feel it in a self-assertive world. From the blare of trumpets, from the strife for mastery, from the restlessness of ambition, and the constant temptation to self-seeking, how blessed to retire to self-abasement before the Lord; how sweetly then from lowly lips falls the confession, “Thou knowest that I love thee.” To cherish this life alone is very dangerous. Hence comes the pride that apes humility; hence self-pleasing under the garb of lowliness. Worse than the hypocrisy which disfigures its countenance that it may appear unto men to fast is the subtle insincerity that disfigures itself that it may appear unto itself to fast. Christ sends St. Peter from confessing, as He sent Mary from adoring Him, to do His work. The world is the true sphere for lowliness; loving labour among others is the school of self-humiliation; love of Christ is perfected in the activities of a human sympathy.
What Christ wants from me is a practical expression of my theoretical love, an expression in act, as well as on the lip; and though it may be a hard, it will always be a blessed, answer, if I can give it, “Lord, thou seest all things, Thou seest that I love Thee.” And others ought to see it too. My love to Christ ought to be a visible love. Let me ask myself, therefore, what proofs of my love to Christ I am giving in my daily life. From my demeanour and conversation in my home would any one gather that I love my Lord and Saviour with an ardent love? If I never talk about Him as worthy of love, how can others believe that I regard Him so? If I never boldly take His part, when His laws are despised, or His authority is contemned; if I see, and do not rebuke, the sins that dishonour and grieve Him, how can I make good my profession of loyal love to Himself? If I never think of Him or speak of Him as a dear friend, who is gone away for a time, but is soon to come again; if my heart never thrills with joy in the hope of His “glorious appearing,” so that I am setting everything in order to meet His eye, how can I prove my possession of that love to which separation is a sorrow? Do I make my love to Him as plain and incontrovertible as He makes His love to me? I have never to ask Him, “Lovest Thou me?” If I did, He would answer in a moment, by pointing to the proof He gave of that, and say, “Behold my hands and my feet.” He bears in His glorifled body the “print of the nails,” proofs of His wonderful love to me. But what a contrast between that love and mine! His so strong, and mine so weak; His so changeless, and mine so fickle; His so active, and mine so indolent; His so open, and mine so secret; His so ardent, and mine so cold! 1 [Note: G. H. Knight, The Master’s Questions to His Disciples, 357.]
3. While service is for all, it is also for each.—Let us recall the variety of words used—“lambs,” “sheep.” Under Divine Providence we have each a work to do for God, each a station and duties in the Divine society; some, sheep to feed, some, lambs to tend. The sheep must be fed individually—milk for the lambs and strong food for the sheep. One of the great intellectual pleasures of the ministry is preaching the same Gospel in many different ways; the boys’ brigade wants it put in one way, the men’s lecture in another, and the mothers’ meeting in another.
(1) The Lambs.—No other book recognizes the place of children so fully or so kindly as the Bible. The great books of the world are somewhat deficient in this. Their writers have had no time, found no occasion to dwell on children, and, perhaps, sometimes have been afraid to do so. The Bible does deal with children because of the infinite love of God, and His knowledge of human destiny. Our Lord Jesus Christ set the child in the midst of the stormy disputers, and made him the type of entrance into the Kingdom of heaven. How can any deeper interest gather around their life and their claim than that which is poured upon them by the words of the Risen Christ, “Feed my lambs”?
The Rev. Harry Venn has recorded this experience,—“The great danger is from surfeiting children with religious doctrines or over much talk. Doctrines they are too young to understand; and too frequent talking wearies them. Many parents err in expecting that the religion of a child should be the same as their own. I did not give mine formal instruction till they were eight years old, and then chiefly set before them the striking facts in the Old Testament, or the miracles in the New. I also laboured much to set before them the goodness of our God in things which they could understand, such as the comforts which we enjoyed together. Watching providential occurrences, I made use of them to give a body and substance to spiritual truth. One method used to affect them much—carrying them to see an afflicted child of God rejoicing in tribulation, and speaking of His love. To this day they tell of one and another whom they saw happy, though poor and in pain.” 1 [Note: Memoir and Correspondence of Henry Venn, 429.]
It is a beautiful tradition of the Jewish Rabbis that when Moses was a shepherd under Jethro in the land of Midian, a little lamb went frisking from the flock and strayed into the wilderness. Moses, full of the spirit which loveth all things—both man, and bird, and beast—and faithful in little deeds as well as in great, pursued the lamb over rocks and through briars, and after long hours of weary search recovered it; and when he had recovered it he laid it in his bosom, saying, “Little lamb, thou knowest not what is good for thee; trust me, thy shepherd, who will guide thee aright.” And when God saw his tenderness, and the straying lamb, He said, “Thou shalt be a shepherd to My people Israel.” 2 [Note: Dean Farrar.]
(2) The Sheep.—“Feed my sheep” comes next; feed the middle-aged, the strong, the vigorous; they also need to be directed in their Christian course, and to be guided to some field of earnest service for Christ, therefore shepherdize them. Do not try to govern these, but feed them. They may have far more prudence, and they certainly have more experience, than you have, and therefore do not rule them, but remind them of the deep things of God, and deal out to them an abundance of consoling truth. There is that good old man, he is a father in Christ; he knew the Lord fifty years before you were born; he has some peculiarities, and in them you must let him take his own course, but still feed him. His taste will appreciate solid meat, he knows a field of tender grass when he gets into it; feed him, then, for his infirmities require it.
Not to priests only is this said, but to every one of us also, who are also entrusted with a little flock. For do not despise it because it is a little flock. For “My Father,” He saith, “hath pleasure in them.” Each of us hath a sheep; let him lead that to the proper pastures. 3 [Note: St. Chrysostom.]
We find the best interpretation of the three commands given by our Lord to St. Peter, by tracing their fulfilment in the Apostle’s life. In the early chapters of the Acts we find St. Peter standing forth as the spokesman and leader of the Church; yet the doctrinal content of his sermons is extremely simple, just such as we should teach to little children: St. Peter was feeding the lambs. Then another Apostle comes to the front; the Church needs a more developed doctrine, for the lambs have grown into sheep and now require the “strong meat” of the Word; St. Paul feeds the sheep, St. Peter aids the work by tending the sheep. In the First Epistle of St. Peter we find him again the leading exponent of Christian doctrine: it is now a fully developed doctrine, a great advance upon the simple teaching of his early days; now, under the guidance of God, he is feeding the sheep. 1 [Note: H. O. Cavalier.]
Love and Service
Literature
Ballard (F.), Does it Matter what a Man Believes? 63.
Barrett (G. S.), Musings for Quiet Hours, 61.
Beeching (H. C.), The Grace of Episcopacy, 163.
Broughton (L. G.), Table Talks of Jesus, 85.
Campbell (J. M.), Bible Questions, 110.
Campbell (R. J.), The Making of an Apostle, 113.
Carpenter (W. B.), The Son of Man among the Sons of Men, 93.
Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 319.
Furse (C. W.), The Beauty of Holiness, 32.
Gibbon (J. M.), The Children’s Year, 261.
Gray (W. H.), The Children’s Friend, 17.
Hammond (E. P.), Early Conversion, 61.
Harris (J. R.), Memoranda Sacra, 61.
Harrison (W.), Clovelly Sermons, 62.
Hopps (J. P.), Sermons of Life and Love, 1.
Hort (F. J. A.), Village Sermons in Outline, 257.
Howatt (J. R.), Jesus the Poet, 278.
Jeffrey (J.), The Personal Ministry of the Son of Man, 288.
Knight (G. H.), The Master’s Questions to His Disciples, 353.
Lewis (Z. H.), Petros, 143.
Mackennal (A.), Christ’s Healing Touch, 171.
Maclaren (A.), After the Resurrection, 77.
Mortimer (A. G.), Jesus and the Resurrection, 236.
Moule (H. C. G.), The Secret of the Presence, 143.
Murray (A.), The Children for Christ, 328.
Rigg (J. H.), Scenes and Studies in the Ministry of our Lord, 178.
Roberts (W. P.), Law and God, 76.
Salmon (G.), Cathedral and University Sermons, 50.
Skrine (J. H.), Saints and Worthies, 1.
Skrine (J. H.), Sermons to Pastors and Masters, 192.
Smith (W. C.), Sermons, 295.
Stone (D.), The Discipline of Faith, 155.
Watson (J.), The Inspiration of our Faith, 167.
Verse 22
The Individuality of Duty
Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.— John 21:22.
1. This is the last recorded dialogue between Peter and Christ, and it has a special and a touching interest from the fact that it is so. How many and how varied these dialogues had been, and how rich and how vivid the instruction they contain! They form a magazine of truth in themselves, and had we no other fragments of Christ’s life handed down to us than the narrative of His dealings with Peter, we should still have a tolerably full indication both of the doctrine He intends us to believe and of the duty He commands us to practise. And now the revelation was wound up, and the interviews themselves were to cease. Whatever further talk the Lord had with Peter, “something sealed the lips of the evangelist”; for with these words before us his record ends.
Could there be a more fitting and consistent close to the whole? It is the same Peter who speaks, tender-hearted and impulsive as ever, with a trace of the old leaven not yet purged. It is the same Christ, too, who answers him, true to the message and unaltered in the character He had revealed from the very first. “Follow me,” He said three years before by the lakeside where Peter was plying his toils, unaware of the destiny that awaited him. And now, after all that had come and gone, when faith had been strengthened by experience, and the cord of love that had first drawn the heart after Christ had become a fast firm cable, wrought through long days of fellowship and common toil, there, at the self-same spot where Christ called His disciple before, He calls him again, reminding him, as He does so, that the omega of his life is the same as its alpha, even the duty of personal discipleship, the word “Follow me.”
2. When Jesus had said “Follow me,” Peter turned about and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following. At once he put the question, “Lord, and what shall this man do?” Christ’s answer is our text.
Now it is not easy to determine with any certainty the spirit in which that question was asked, or the meaning of the answer it received. Some have imagined that Peter, fancying from Christ’s silence regarding the beloved disciple, that his course would be free from those fiery troubles which had just been foretold for himself, inquired, with a kind of envious dissatisfaction, respecting the destiny of John. This explanation, however, seems incredible. We must remember that the thrice-repeated question, “Lovest thou me?” had only just thrilled on his ear, awakening solemn memories of his thrice-repeated denial. We must remember that Christ had suddenly revealed the future, and indicated a martyr’s death as his lot in the day of his old age. We must bear in mind that Peter possessed that generous impulsive nature which would prompt a man under excitement to forget his own sorrows in unselfish devotion to his friends. And then, remembering that from the recent conversation with Christ, his heart must have been quivering with the emotions of love and sorrow, it is hard to conceive that one feeling of jealous discontent could have suggested this inquiry.
Most probably the question sprang from earnest anxiety regarding John’s destiny. It may even be that Peter, having at length learned the glory of sharing the Saviour’s cross, was concerned lest his brother disciple should not have the honour of following so closely in his Master’s sufferings as himself. Mingled with that would be the anxious feeling which men of Peter’s ardent and unselfish nature ever cherish regarding the future of a friend. It is easier for such impetuous souls to trust their own lot in God’s hands than that of their brother; they can accept sorrow more calmly for themselves than view its advent for another. And in this spirit of unselfish devotion—rising even to restless curiosity regarding the Divine plan—it probably was that, gazing on the beloved disciple Peter forgot the picture of his own martyrdom in his solicitude for John.
3. Christ’s answer contains three statements—
I. The duty of following Him lies on every one of us—“Follow thou me.”
II. The manner of the following rests upon His will and our individuality—“If I will that he tarry till I come.”
III. We are warned against needless curiosity or anxiety—“What is that to thee?”
I
Following is for All
“Follow thou me.”
This is the Lord’s command to each of His disciples. We have heard His voice saying “Come unto me,” and now He says, “Follow thou me.”
1. Notice how comprehensive is this command. It includes every other requirement and precept of the Gospel, and it calls into action every power and faculty of our renewed being.
(1) It means follow with the heart.—This is no mere external compliance, no mere outward conformity to our blessed Master’s will. It is the service of the heart. The force that is brought to bear on the disciple is not that of compulsion, but of attraction. “ Draw me, we will run after thee” ( Song of Solomon 1:4). No man can follow Christ whose heart has not been won by Him. “Whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered” ( Romans 6:17, R.V.). It is neither the terrors of the law nor the fear of a judgment to come that enables us to respond to this command. It is the attraction of Divine love that is the power. The Lord Himself must be the loadstone of our hearts.
Every question was among some of his friends an open question. Strauss and Comte, Mill and Bentham, Coleridge, Carlyle, and Maurice appear as factors again and again in the discussions of that time. But nothing seems to have disturbed his balance; “his heart stood fast.” His habit of obedience to his mother, and his intense affection for her, had insensibly passed into strict obedience to conscience. Perhaps one of the chief lessons of his early life is that this affectionate obedience is the soil in which faith flourishes. 1 [Note: Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, i. 54.]
(2) It means follow in faith.—Following is often like stepping out on the unseen. It is often like walking on the water. We could never venture out without a Divine warrant. But He who granted it to Peter when He said “Come!” gives us the same warrant when through the darkness and the trial He says, “Follow thou me.” This needs the courage of faith. Without faith we could not take a single step, for it is an impossible walk except to him that believeth. The stepping-stones of faith are the promises of God. “But supposing I have no faith,” says one; “what am I to do?” Don’t think of believing at all. Think of Him who bids you follow Him. Hearken to His voice. In other words, listen to His written Word: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” ( Romans 10:17).
Can you picture it at all? The church is built by the natives—walls of nipa palm spines, and thatched roof of palm leaves, floor of bark—two doorways on each side, and one at each end, and plenty of square openings for windows. We have no church members here yet, but we think of the Moffats, and feel encouraged. They were fifteen years working at one station and not one member, and yet she asked a friend to send her a communion service, and directly after it arrived they needed it. 1 [Note: James Chalmers, 337.]
(3) It means follow with the will—Our wills must be in this following, or it means nothing. All true obedience begins, not in the outward action, but in the inward spring of all activity; that is, in the will. We must will to do His will, if we would follow Christ. We become obedient within, before we are obedient in the outward act. The moment for action may not have arrived, but the time for willing to be obedient is always present. 2 [Note: E. H. Hopkins.]
The wish to disobey is already disobedience; and although at this time I was really doing a great many things I did not like, to please my parents, I have not now one self-approving thought or consolation in having done so, so much did its sullenness and maimedness pollute the meagre sacrifice. 3 [Note: Ruskin, Praeterita, i. 424.]
2. Notice how difficult it is. Against us are the efforts of our great spiritual adversary. He is constantly on the watch with a view to hindering God’s children in their progress. But this, let us never forget, is not without God’s permission. It is His will that our following of Him should be, not apart from obstacles, but in the midst of them, in spite of them.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. 1 [Note: G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World.]
(1) There are alluring attractions—earthly objects and pursuits that appeal to our natural inclinations. Some of them are perfectly harmless in themselves, but when they are yielded to, we discover afterwards that they have lowered our spiritual tone, and robbed us of our strength. And so we have been impeded in our progress.
Progress is marked by stations left behind. If we follow Jesus, we go somewhere, which means leaving some place. Journeying with the breast to the East means with the back to the West. The disciples left their boats and nets when they followed Jesus. What has our following cost us? What selfish plans, worldly projects, doubtful amusements, dangerous companionships, are behind us for the King’s and the kingdom’s sake? We sing, “Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,” but another hymn brings the thought to a sharp point, “Have I left aught for Thee?” 2 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 25.]
“As for the pleasures of this Life, and outward Business, let that be upon the bye. Be above all these things, by Faith in Christ; and then you shall have the true use and comfort of them,—and not otherwise.” How true is this; equal in its obsolete dialect, to the highest that man has yet attained to, in any dialect old or new! 3 [Note: Carlyle, Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, ii. 136.]
(2) Then there are perplexing problems.—Perhaps we are troubled as we look around upon the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. We think of the multitudes living in darkness and degradation, not only in heathen lands, but in our own Christian England. We are unable to fathom the mysteries these questions suggest. Or, it may be, we are perplexed by the objections of sceptics to the truth of Holy Scripture. We are unable to find an answer to these things. What is the remedy? Look to the Master, who says, “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.” We must rest in His wisdom, we must confide in His faithfulness, and, without waiting to question or to speculate, we must be prompt in our obedience, and follow Him.
All the great mysteries are simple as well as unfathomably deep; and they are common to all men. Every Christian feels them less or more. 1 [Note: Memoir of John Duncan, 403.]
(3) Then there are distracting cares—the things that belong to the ordinary business of daily life. Some of these are very common matters, and perhaps very trivial, but God’s children, when they carry them, find them a serious hindrance to their progress. It is quite possible to be so overburdened by care that we cease to follow Christ. We must learn the secret of committing all into His hands daily if we would know what it is to follow the Lord fully. 2 [Note: E. H. Hopkins.]
“Acts of obedience are not perfect, and therefore yield not perfect Grace. Faith, as an act, yields it not; but ‘only’ as it carries us into Him, who is our perfect rest and peace; in whom we are accounted of, and received by, the Father,—even as Christ Himself. This is our high calling. Rest we here, and here only.” Even so, my noble one! The noble soul will, one day, again come to understand these old words of yours. 3 [Note: Carlyle, Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, iii. 190.]
There is a beautiful old tradition, done finely into verse by one of our poets, that, during the demon-raging fury of the Neronic persecution, Peter, visiting the harried flock at Rome, who nevertheless were undaunted in their brave stand for the Name of Christ, was one day waited upon by the threatened Christians, who urged him to leave the city of death, that he might continue, in less dangerous places, to carry on his apostolic work.
Not in yon streaming shambles must thou die;
We counsel, we entreat, we charge thee, fly!
The Apostle protests that his place is the place of danger, and that, come what may, in Rome he will remain. One by one they plead—for the sake of multitudes who will be as sheep without a shepherd, for the Kingdom’s sake, for Christ’s sake—that Peter, though for himself not caring, yet, as caring for others, may seek safety in flight. At last he yields—yields to their importunity. He goes forth, in the night-time, through the Capuan gate. Stealthily, swiftly, he pursued his way
To the Campania glimmering wide and still,
And strove to think he did his Master’s will.
But he fights with pursuing doubts. Is his flight cowardice? or is it for the sake of longer-continued testimony? Is he still true to the voice which said, “Follow thou me”? Soon shall he have his answer. What is that vision of the night?
Lo, on the darkness brake a wandering ray:
A vision flashed along the Appian Way.
Divinely in the pagan night it shone—
A mournful Face—a Figure hurrying on—
Though haggard and dishevelled, frail and worn,
A King, of David’s lineage, crowned with thorn.
“ Lord, whither farest?” Peter, wondering cried.
“ To Rome,” said Christ, “to be re-crucified.”
Into the night the vision ebbed like breath;
And Peter turned, and rushed on Rome and death. 1 [Note: T. F. Lockyer, Seeking a Country, 101.]
II
The Manner of Following is for the Individual
“If I will that he tarry till I come.”
The first thought is that it is the duty of us all to follow; the second is that the manner of following rests upon His will and is made to suit our individuality. To the anxious Peter, Christ declared that John’s course was to be different from his own. By the words, “What is that to thee,” He emphatically indicated a distinction—implying by them that he should go his own way and leave his brother’s cause in His hands. The one was to labour, the other to wait. The one was to preach the Gospel throughout the world, and be summoned to heaven by the sufferings of martyrdom, the other was to watch in long banishment the coming again of the unseen Saviour when the old economy should fall, and then in peaceful old age to pass to the eternal home. All this marked difference of destiny by which they were each to follow the Saviour is contained in the reply, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?”
1. Christ appoints a separate experience for each of His followers. “Lord, what shall this man do?” “What is that to thee?” No words could mark more emphatically the great difference which was henceforth to exist between the paths of those two men who had hitherto followed Christ side by side. They seem to express a kind of impassable solitude in which each man was to live. John could not lead the life of Peter; Peter could not fulfil the destiny of John. In different and lonely ways they were each to travel till the end should come. The life of Peter was to be action crowned by suffering, the life of John a patient waiting for the manifestation of Christ— there, in the difference between labouring and watching, lay the difference in their respective courses. Now, if we contemplate the distinctive characters of these two men, we shall find its Divine meaning. Each course was beautifully adapted to train their individual characters, and to fit them for their individual work.
What could be more appropriate as a close to the life of Christ than such a picture as this, which opened out such a view of the Church’s mission, as waiting and yet working, as suffering and yet serving? The great difficulty in the mind of Peter was how to reconcile the two, so that they might live and act harmoniously together. This difficulty was to be solved in course of time, when the days of trial and persecution came on the Church. Then it was seen that something more was needed than suffering and service; they would have to “tarry” or wait in patient expectation for the coming of Christ. In this way, the waiting spirit, the spirit of John, came to be more and more developed in the Church; and in proportion as it becomes developed, so ought the active spirit, the spirit of Peter, to make a corresponding advance. And thus the two sides of the Church’s life will advance in harmonious union, until, by the discipline of suffering, and service, and patience, it is perfected in every part. 1 [Note: D. Merson, Words of Life, 223.]
2. The discovery of our own particular path is found in the revelation of His will which God makes to us. “If I will that he tarry.” To follow Christ is, like Him, to obey whenever God’s will is clear; to be patient like Him when it is dark. And this is a rule which applies to all circumstances, and one which can be obeyed in defiance of all results. There are circumstances to which no other law applies; under which no experiences of other men can help us. The only course at such times is to act at once under such light as we may possess. Do the duty that is nearest to you. Follow Christ in His perfect, unmurmuring obedience, and as you follow, a fuller light will come. It may be that your duty is not to act, but to be patient: if so, forget not that “they also serve who only stand and wait.” And to follow Christ is to do God’s will and challenge results. When that will is clear, we have no right to look at consequences. The command to Peter was a command to challenge all issues, although “another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not, follow thou me.”
There is one way for thee; but one; inform
Thyself of it; pursue it; one way each
Soul hath by which the Infinite in reach
Lieth before him; seek and ye shall find:
To each the way is plain; that way the wind
Points all the trees along; that way run down
Loud singing streams; that way pour on and on
A thousand headlands with their cataracts
Of toppling flowers; that way the sun enacts
His travel, and the moon and all the stars
Soar; and the tides move towards it; nothing bars
A man who goes the way that he should go;
That which comes soonest is the thing to do.
Thousand light-shadows in the rippling sand
Joy the true soul; the waves along the strand
Whiten beyond his eyes; the trees tossed back
Show him the sky; or, heaped upon his track
In a black wave, wind heaped, point onward still
His way, one way. O joy, joy, joy, to fill
The day with leagues! Go thy way, all things say,
Thou hast thy way to go, thou hast thy day
To live; thou hast thy need of thee to make
In the hearts of others; do thy thing; yes, slake
The world’s great thirst for yet another man!
And be thou sure of this: no other can
Do for thee that appointed thee of God;
Not any light shall shine upon thy road
For other eyes;
Thee the angel calls,
As he call others; and thy life to thee
Is precious as the greatest’s life can be
To him; so live thy life and go thy way. 1 [Note: Richard Watson Dixon.]
III
Be Not Too Curious or Anxious
“What is that to thee?”
In these words there seems to be conveyed to us a warning against unnecessary curiosity or anxiety about the lot of others, and in general about the providence of God. Peter’s anxiety typifies the impertinence of curiosity, the impatience of ignorance, in things sacred, which has been the temptation of Christians in every age. The rebuke is the Master’s protest against indulgence in this spirit. Energetic work in the present, not idle speculation about the future, is the parting charge which He gives to His chief disciple, and through Him to His whole Church so long as time shall be.
There are several occasions in the Gospel narrative on which a temper near akin to this was checked and corrected by our blessed Lord. Two of them are recorded in the thirteenth chapter of St. Luke. “Tell me not” (He would there say) “of those Galileans whom the cruel Pilate ordered to be massacred while they were engaged in sacrifice; or of those eighteen inhabitants of Jerusalem, upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell, and slew them; tell me not of these, as though you would seek to pry into the judicial dealings of God’s providence towards them; but look rather to yourselves, and be assured of this, that except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” And again, “Ask me not, in a spirit of unprofitable curiosity, or of self-righteous estimate of your own condition, whether there be few, or many, who are to be saved; but ask this rather of your own consciences—are ye striving to enter in at the strait gate? for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.”
1. Our Lord did not mean to arrest the spirit of legitimate inquiry.—Curiosity is the parent of knowledge. Peter’s question concerning the future reserved for his friend seems to have been prompted partly by affection, but partly also by curiosity. Both instincts belong to our essential human nature. When God created man, He breathed into him an inquiring spirit, and made him eager to explore the mysterious world which spreads round about him, and to search out whatever things are hidden and unknown. Urged by this great impulse, the captains of adventure forced their way through forest and wilderness, and steered by the stars across an uncharted sea. And every lad who is worth his salt still tingles at times with the ancient longing to wander in strange lands, that he may discover for himself what treasures they conceal. It is the same imperious desire that has gathered the facts of science and framed the systems of philosophy. As Cudworth quaintly puts it: “The sons of Adam are now as busy as ever himself was, about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, shaking the boughs of it and scrambling for the fruit”: and people who pride themselves on being neither philosophical nor scientific betray this elemental instinct of curiosity in double measure in regard to everything which is human or which deals with humanity.
I am reminded, by one who was present, of a scene when some Americans were announced, seeking an interview, “What is it you want?” she [Jenny Lind] asked, standing very erect. “Oh, Madame Goldschmidt, we hoped to have the pleasure of seeing you, and making your acquaintance.” “Well, here is my front!” Then (with a whisk round), “There is my back. Now” (with a deep curtsey) “you can go home, and say that you have seen me!” After her visitors had crept out abashed, she was very penitent for having been at all rude. But she could not endure any impertinent curiosity; and it was always a perilous experiment to introduce a stranger to her, lest she should suspect some motive in the introduction, when her coldness would be freezing. 1 [Note: H. Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 23.]
2. Jesus did not desire to discourage sympathetic interest in the welfare of others.—It would be strange indeed if He did, He, who in word and act preached the principle, “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” Yet it may be one thing to say, “What shall I do for this man?” and another, and a very different one, to ask, “What shall this man do?” In the first case, the question turns upon present duty, in the second it turns upon future events. The former word raises the thought of a responsibility that is mine, the latter intermeddles with a care which is really not mine, but God’s. And in every such case, as we pass from what is practical to what is curious, and let the thoughts turn from the matters of personal duty to the mysteries of Divine administration, the Saviour refuses to lift the veil, saying, “Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther. The secret things belong unto God, but the things that are revealed belong unto thee to do them. Askest thou, What shall this man do? What is that to thee? Follow thou me.”
We are not to suppose that the doctrine of altruism is a gospel peculiar to the enlightenment of more modern times; there is a Christian altruism that is far more ennobling and radical than anything to which infidel ethics has given the name. Here, as elsewhere, the ideas with which it is hoped to supersede the Bible have been drawn from the Bible itself, as if the voice could be silenced by the echo, and the substance be banished by its own pallid shadow. We grant it all. But if the question be a question of what is spiritual, if it be a question between the keeping of your own soul unspotted on the one hand, and the doing of some imagined service for your neighbour on the other, then remember that Christ says, “What is that neighbour’s state unto thee?”—what is it, that is to say, in these particular circumstances, under these particular conditions?—“Follow thou me!” Personal holiness is the main thing, personal discipleship, personal salvation. It is your first duty to save your soul, and that not for your own sake merely, but for the sake of a God who has given you the trust, and asks it back from your hands by a right which is peculiarly His own. Why do I say these things? Because there is a class of literature and of sentiment at the present day that exalts the doctrine of love and self-sacrifice towards our neighbour to the extent of attempting to enlist admiration when love and self-sacrifice lead to sin for his sake. No, in the matters that pertain to the soul, its welfare and safe-keeping, one’s own cares come first. And to give them anything else than the first place is to become practical idolaters by the preference of a neighbour’s claim to God’s. 1 [Note: W. A. Gray, The Shadow of the Hand, 149.]
Men speak too much about the world. Each one of us here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a Life of his own to lead? One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us forevermore! It were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities. The world’s being saved will not save us; nor the world’s being lost destroy us. We should look to ourselves: there is great merit here in the “duty of staying at home!” And on the whole, to say truth, I never heard of “worlds” being “saved” in any other way. That mania of saving worlds is itself a piece of the Eighteenth Century with its windy sentimentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the saving of the world I will trust confidently to the Maker of the world; and look a little to my own saving, which I am more competent to! 1 [Note: Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 163.]
Thomas à Kempis tells us that
If you could let men go their way,
They would let you go yours;
and he adds:
We might have peace, great peace,
If we would not load ourselves with others’ words and works,
And with what concerns us not.
How can he be long at rest
Who meddles in another’s cares,
And looks for matters out of his own path,
And only now and then gathers his thoughts within him? 2 [Note: Lord Avebury, Peace and Happiness, 342.]
3. We must be concerned for others but we may be over-anxious.—Some men, of ardent, energetic temperament, seem to have very exaggerated ideas of the extent of their responsibility. They seem to live only to keep all other people straight. No heresy can anywhere be broached, but they must rush to the front and expose it. No iniquity can anywhere be practised, but they must drag it into the light to condemn it. God made them keepers of their own vineyards, but they spend all their time in looking after other men’s vines. Unquestionably there is something noble in this temper; but there is something quixotic too; and Christ seems here to teach that He imposes upon no man such a responsibility. The world is sadly full of evil, scepticism, infidelity, superstition, immorality, on every side. What, then, am I as a Christian to do? Simply to obey my Master’s command, “Follow thou me,”—protest assuredly, where a protest must be made to clear oneself of all complicity with sin; protest where a protest is needed to save a brother, and to put a wrong-doer to shame; but before all that, be thou a true disciple, whoever may be false; be thou thyself a holy example of justice and mercy and purity and truth, though all the world should be only a sweltering mass of impiety, and impurity, and wrong.”
I was once sitting in a room where I had to wait for half an hour before a meeting, and by the fire was sitting a poorly clad, rather wretched-looking, old man, gently moaning at intervals. I asked him if anything was the matter, and he said, “No; I was only just thinking what a deal of trouble it takes to get the world right and to keep it right.” 1 [Note: Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 222.]
One man is a missionary perhaps in some foreign land; he is alone, one Christian among thousands of heathen, and he would fain know what will become of all these. Another is labouring single-handed as a parochial minister in the midst of a thronging town population whom his words never reach and never can reach; and he asks in dismay what shall be the end of all these. If he picks up one soul here and another there out of the seething mass of ignorance and vice, it is all that he can hope to do. To his faithless questioning the rebuke is addressed, “What is that to thee? Thou hast a work to do; thou hast a message to deliver. Thou knowest that thy message is truth, and because it is truth, therefore it is salvation. This is enough for thee. Execute thy task to the best of thy power, and leave the rest to Me.” 2 [Note: J. B. Lightfoot, Ordination Addresses, 165.]
4. Peter’s question is often the question of vain speculation about the purposes of God.—It cannot be otherwise than that His deep purposes should be hidden, for He is God, and His designs cannot be scanned and measured by human wisdom. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out,” said one very near to the heart of God. So does He manifest His independence to the will and the counsel of His creatures. It is the glory of God to conceal His purposes. “Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?” Such concealment is adapted to our condition. By it He trains us to submission; He promotes within us humility, He awakens us to constant ceaseless vigilance; He inspires diligence in our daily living; by gradually removing the cloud from His throne, He makes a constant revelation of truth. Well said Robinson, “There is a new light in God’s word that is yet to break out.” Who knows all the mysteries contained in this volume? Eternity will not be long enough for the full development of all that was in God’s thought, God’s heart, when He inspired this Book. But still there are among us men who are curiosity-mongers about the purposes of God. They will have all God’s depths to be shallows rather than confess their own inability to fathom all mysteries with their own reason.
In my student days I had a very intimate friend, who was pre-eminently successful in gaining prizes by written competition. So surely as he went in for any particular subject, whether classics, philosophy, or mathematics, he came out first. In the general work of the classes and in the recitations he did not appear to be any better than his neighbours; but at a written examination he was “ facile princeps.” At the end of our course I asked him to explain this to me, and he revealed his secret thus: “You take the questions in the paper as they come; hence, if the first question is a very hard one, you spend, perhaps, the whole time allotted for the paper upon that; but when I get a paper into my hand, I read over all the questions, pick out those that I see I can answer at once, and then having disposed of them, and made sure that they will count, I go on to the harder ones. I pass through the plain ones to the difficult, and I take care always to do the one before I attempt the other.” There was great wisdom in the plan, and in the college of life more of us, I imagine, would come out prizemen at the last, if we were to let the hard things of speculation alone, at least until we have performed the plain duties which our Saviour has set before us. But if this be so with the “hard” things, how much more does it hold of those things which are insoluble by mere human reason. Yet how many there are among us who make difficulties, for the existence of which they are not responsible, and for the removal of which they are incompetent, a reason either for their refusing to follow Christ, or for following Him only afar off. 1 [Note: W. M. Taylor, The Limitations of Life, 66.]
(1) There are the mysteries of God’s Providence. How often are we completely at our wits’ end what to make of them. When we begin to inquire into the meaning of this or that occurrence, we get no reply. We meet with things that baffle explanation in our everyday life. The good are taken away, and the wicked left; strong men are cut down in the midst of their days and usefulness. We see communities visited with the most appalling calamities, young and innocent lives taken away in one fell disaster. We see the rising hope of a happy home laid low by the ravages of death, and the weak and feeble spared to a lingering old age. We can scarcely open a newspaper without reading of sufferings and fatalities that make the heart bleed. These things are mysteries to us. We try to explain them, but our explanations are often as perplexing as the mysteries themselves.
That old debate which waxed so hot between Job and his friends in the far land of Uz has emerged anew in some form or other in every individual heart and in every successive generation. It has never received fuller or more exhaustive treatment than it had at the hands of these Eastern sages. Yet virtually they left it where they found it. Jehovah appeared to them at the close asserting His sovereignty, and claiming His right to veil Himself in clouds and darkness. He asked them to confide in His wisdom, and to leave the matter in His hands. And what farther can we get than that? We are not responsible for the government of the world. It is not ours to sit upon the throne. We may well leave the vindication of God’s workings to God Himself. He will take care of His own honour. Meanwhile for us there is the lowlier province of working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, under the assurance that “it is God who worketh in us, to will and to do of his good pleasure.” To us the gospel has been preached, and for the use we make of that we shall be held to account. To us the Saviour has said, “Follow me,” and for the answer we give to that earnest call we shall be responsible.
The saintly Robert Leighton—sometime Bishop of Dunblane (of whom, as I am his unworthy successor in the Episcopate of that See, so I would wish to be indeed his follower, even as he was of Christ)—that holy Bishop has a sermon upon this text—preached before the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, November 14, in 1669—in which, speaking of the state of things as it existed in this country two hundred years ago, he exclaims: “Ah! my brethren, the body of religion is torn, and the soul of it expires, while we are striving about the hem of its garment.” Alas! there is too much reason still for the same complaint. We are still far too much inclined to place speculation before practice, to place knowledge before virtue; to be curious about the future rather than to be careful for the present; to be inquisitive about others rather than to be well acquainted with ourselves. How few of us are there, it is to be feared, who could appeal to God in those beautiful sentiments expressed in the 131st Psalm: “Lord, I am not high-minded; I have no proud looks; I do not exercise myself in great matters, or in things which are too high for me. But I refrain my soul and keep it low; like as a child that is weaned from his mother; yea, my soul is even as a weaned child.” To say this, and to say it truly, would be indeed to follow Christ. 1 [Note: C. Wordsworth, Primary Witness to the Truth of the Gospel, 166.]
All that we can safely gather from his conversation at St. Helena is that his mind turns greatly on these questions of religion. He ponders and struggles. A remark which he lets fall at St. Helena explains probably his normal state of mind. “Only a fool,” he says one day, “says that he will die without a confessor. There is so much that one does not know, that one cannot explain.” And as he spoke of the mysteries of religion, we may speak of his frame of mind with regard to them. “There is so much that one does not know, that one cannot explain.” 2 [Note: Lord Rosebery, Napoleon, the Last Phase, 173.]
(2) There are difficulties connected with doctrines of the faith, which rest upon unrevealed mysteries behind them. If we are perplexing ourselves with such things as the fall of man, the sin of the angels, the salvability of the heathen, the locality of heaven, and of the spirits in prison, the decrees of God that seem to destroy the free will of man, or that great problem that presses with equal force on the brain of the wisest philosopher and the heart of the little child, why God permitted the entrance of evil into the world at the first, and why He permits its dominion still; we can not only calm ourselves by the reflection that probably these are depths that no created mind can sound; but still more by the voice of our heavenly Lord, who does not explain any one of them, but says, “Leave mysteries to God, and do thou thine own work of following Me.”
I read Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Coleridge, Philip Van Artevelde, for views of man to meditate upon, instead of theological caricatures of humanity; and I go out into the country to feel God; dabble in chemistry, to feel awe of Him; read the life of Christ, to understand, love, and adore Him; and my experience is closing into this, that I turn with disgust from everything to Christ. I think I get glimpses into His mind, and I am sure that I love Him more and more.… A sublime feeling of a Presence comes upon me at times, which makes inward solitariness a trifle to talk about. 1 [Note: Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson, 152.]
“As to what you may think of my beliefs I have no fear; they need not be discussed and they cannot be attacked.”
“—— But your church has its dogmas.”
“ There is not a dogma of my church that I have ever thought of for a moment—or of any other church.”
“ How can you remain in your church without either believing or disbelieving its dogmas?”
“ My church is the altar of Christ and the House of God,” replied Gabriella simply. “And so is any other church.”
“ And you believe in them all?” he asked in wondering admiration. “I believe in them all.” 2 [Note: James Lane Allen.]
I have a life with Christ to live,
But, ere I live it, must I wait
Till learning can clear answer give
Of this and that book’s date?
I have a life in Christ to live,
I have a death in Christ to die;—
And must I wait, till science give
All doubts a full reply?
Nay rather, while the sea of doubt
Is raging wildly round about,
Questioning of life and death and sin.
Let me but creep within
Thy fold, O Christ, and at Thy feet
Take but the lowest seat,
And hear Thine awful voice repeat
In gentlest accents, heavenly sweet,
Come unto Me, and rest:
Believe Me, and be blest. 3 [Note: John Campbell Shairp.]
(3) Then there are mysteries in the future that we should like to have cleared up. We should like to know the times and the seasons, and we are told that it is not for us to know the times and the seasons, which the Father has placed in His own hands. There are many questions respecting the life to come that press for an answer, such as the nature of the punishment in reserve for the wicked, the occupation of the redeemed, the appearance of the Saviour, the recognition of friends, and the nature of the intercourse in the next life. Regarding these questions, we are left in comparative ignorance, and so their solution cannot be of much practical importance. It is unimportant to know the nature of future punishment; but it is all-important to avoid it. It is unimportant to know the character of the heavenly state; but it is all-important to prepare for it. It might satisfy our curiosity to know if there will be recognition of friends in the next life; but it is of eternal moment to strive to enter in at the strait gate. A veil is drawn over these questions, and our prying into them can do no good. We have been told enough for the practical guidance of life, and whatever interferes with that should be let alone. What is it to us? Let us use to the full the knowledge that God has given us respecting the duties of the present, and the mysteries of the future will be cleared up in due time. Let us act up to our present light, and when we are in a position to benefit by more, more will be given. Meanwhile, let our desire be to follow Jesus; and as we follow Him the light will brighten, our vision will widen, until, amid clearer light than that of the sun, we shall read all mysteries plain, and know even as also we are known.
The Archbishop was spending the day here, and preaching for me. After lunch we went into my study, and he let me talk to him. He was so exceedingly fatherly that day, that I was led on to talk to him about the great problems and mysteries of life, and told him of a certain matter which weighed upon me at times with an almost insupportable weight. It was connected with the hereafter. I may as well say it was the notion of endlessness of time. He listened patiently, and suggested certain lines of thought—and asked if I did not think Hegel’s philosophy helped over such a matter.
Then I said, bluntly enough—“My Lord, have you never had any of these troubles? Don’t you ever feel the mystery of that other life?”
He turned in his chair, put his hand up to his chin, looked at me a moment in his steady way, and then said—“Yes, I think I know what you mean. But I believe so entirely that God is my Father, and that He loves me, and that He will make me perfectly happy in the other life, that I never worry myself over what that life will be.” 1 [Note: 1 Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, ii. 655.]
Experience bows a sweet contented face,
Still setting-to her seal that God is true:
Beneath the sun, she knows, is nothing new;
All things that go return with measured pace,
Winds, rivers, man’s still recommencing race:—
While Hope beyond earth’s circle strains her view,
Past sun and moon, and rain and rainbow too,
Enamoured of unseen eternal grace,
Experience saith, “My God doth all things well:”
And for the morrow taketh little care,
Such peace and patience garrison her soul:—
While Hope, who never yet hath eyed the goal,
With arms flung forth, and backward-floating hair,
Touches, embraces, hugs the invisible. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]
The Individuality of Duty
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