441. The Capstone

The Capstone

Joh_17:4 : ’93I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.’94

There is a profound satisfaction in the completion of anything we have undertaken. We lift the capstone with exultation. While, on the other hand, there is nothing more disappointing than, after having toiled in a certain direction, to find that our investment is profitless and our time wasted. Christ came to throw up a highway on which the whole world might, if it chose, mount into heaven. He did it. The foul-mouthed crew who attempted to tread on him could not extinguish the sublime satisfaction which he expressed when he said, ’93I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.’94

Alexander the Great was wounded, and the doctors could not medicate his wounds, and he seemed to be dying, and in his dream the sick man saw a plant with a peculiar flower, and he dreamed that that plant was put upon his wound, and that immediately it was cured. And Alexander, waking from his dream, told this to the physician; and the physician wandered out until he found just the kind of plant which the sick man had described, brought it to him, and the wound was healed. Well, the human race had been hurt with the ghastliest of all wounds, that of sin. It was the business of Christ to bring a balm for that wound’97the balm of Divine restoration. In carrying this business to a successful issue the difficulties were stupendous. In many of our plans we have our friends to help us; some to draw a sketch of the plan, others to help us in the execution. But Christ fought every inch of his way against bitter hostility and amid circumstances all calculated to depress and defeat. In the first place, his worldly occupation was against him. I find that he earned his livelihood by the carpenter’92s trade’97an occupation always to be highly regarded and respected. But you know as well as I do that in order to succeed in any employment one must give his entire time to it; and I have to declare that the fatigues of carpentry were unfavorable to the execution of a mission which required all mental and physical faculties. Through high, dry, hard, husky, insensate Judaism to hew a way for a new and glorious dispensation was a stupendous undertaking that was enough to demand all the concentrated energies even of Christ. We have a great many romantic stories about what men with physical toil have accomplished in intellectual departments, but you know that after a man has been toiling all day with adze and saw and hammer and plane and ax, about all he can do is to rest. A weary body is an unfavorable adjunct to a toiling mind. You whose life is purely mechanical, if you were called to the upbuilding of a kingdom, or the proclamation of a new code of morals, or the starting of a revolution which should upturn all nations, could get some idea of the uncongeniality of Christ’92s worldly occupation with his heavenly mission. In his father’92s shop no more intercourse with men was necessary than is ordinarily necessary in bargaining with men who have work to do; yet Christ, with hands hard from touch of tools of trade, was called forth to become a public speaker, to preach in the face of mobs, while some wept and some shook their fists and some gnashed upon him with their teeth and many wanted him out of the way. To address orderly and respectful assemblages is not so easy as it may seem, but it requires more energy and more force and more concentration to address an exasperated mob. The villagers of Nazareth heard the pounding of his hammer, but all the wide reaches of eternity were to hear the stroke of his spiritual upbuilding.

So, also, his habits of dress and of diet were against him. The mighty men of Christ’92s time did not appear in apparel without trinkets and without adornments. None of the C’e6sars would have appeared in citizens’92 apparel. Yet here was a man, here was a professed king, who always wore the same coat. Indeed, it was far from shabby, for after he had worn it a long while the gamblers thought it worth raffling about; but still it was far from being an imperial robe. It was a coat that any ordinary man might have worn on an ordinary occasion.

Neither was there any pretension in his diet. No cupbearer with golden chalice brought him wine to drink. On the seashore he ate fish, first having broiled it himself. No one fetched him water to drink, but bending over the well in Samaria he begged a drink. He sat at only one banquet, and that not at all sumptuous, for, to relieve the awkwardness of the host, one of the guests had to prepare wine for the company. Other kings ride in a chariot; he walked. Other kings, as they advance, have heralds ahead and applauding subjects behind; Christ’92s retinue was made up of sunburned fishermen. Other kings sleep under embroidered canopy; this one on a shelterless hill. Riding but once’97as far as I now remember’97on a colt, and that borrowed.

Again, his poverty was against him. It requires money to build great enterprises. Men of means are afraid of a penniless projector, lest a loan be demanded. It requires money to print books, to build institutions, to pay instructors. No wonder the wise men of Christ’92s time laughed at this penniless Christ. ’93Why,’94 they said, ’93who is to pay for this new religion? Who is to charter the ships to carry the missionaries? Who is to pay the salaries of the teachers? Shall wealthy Judaism be discomfited by a penniless Christ?’94 The consequence was that most of the people who followed Christ had nothing to lose. Wealthy Joseph of Arimathea buried Christ, but he risked no social position in doing that. It is always safe to bury a dead man! Well-to-do Zacch’e6us risked no wealth or social position in following Christ, but took a position in a tree to look down as he passed. Nicodemus, wealthy Nicodemus, risked nothing of social position in following Christ, for he skulked by night to find him.

All this was against Christ. So the fact that he was not regularly graduated, was against him. If a man comes with the diploma of colleges and schools and theological seminaries, and he has been through foreign travel, the world is disposed to listen. Here was a man who had graduated at no college, had not in any academy by ordinary means learned the alphabet of the language which he spoke, and yet he proposed to instruct in subjects which had confounded the mightiest intellects. John says: ’93The Jews marveled, saying, how hath this man letters, having never learned?’94 We in our day have found out that a man without a diploma may know as much as a man with one, and that a college cannot transform a sluggard into a philosopher, or a theological seminary teach a fool to preach. An empty head after the laying on of the hands of the presbytery is empty still. But it shocked all existing prejudices in those olden times for a man with no scholastic pretension and no graduation from a learned institution to set himself up for a teacher. It was all against him.

So, also, the brevity of his life was against him. He had not come to what we call mid-life. But very few men do anything before thirty-three years of age, and yet that was the point at which Christ’92s life terminated. The first fifteen years you take in nursery and school. Then it will take you at least six years to get into your occupation or profession. That will bring you to twenty-one years. Then it will take you ten years at least to get established in your life-work, correcting the mistakes you have made. If any man at thirty-three years of age gets fully established in his life-work, he is the exception. Yet that is the point at which Christ’92s life terminated. Men in military life have done their most wonderful deeds before thirty-three years of age. There may be exceptions to it; but the most wonderful exploits in military prowess have occurred before thirty-three years of age. But as a legislator’97no man becomes eminent as a legislator until he has had long years of experience. And yet the gray-bearded scribes were expected to bow down in silence before this young legislator, who arraigned Sanhedrins and accused governments. Aristotle was old; Lycurgus was old; Seneca was old. The great legislators of the world have been old. Christ was young. All this was against him. If a child twelve years of age should get up in your presence to discuss great questions of metaphysics or ethics or politics or government, you would not be more contemptuous than these gray-bearded scribes in the presence of this young Christ. Popular opinion in those days declared: ’93Blessed is the merchant who has a castle down on the banks of Lake Tiberius.’94 This young man said: ’93Blessed are the poor.’94 Popular opinion said in those days: ’93Blessed are those who live amid statuary and fountains and gardens and congratulations and all kinds of festivity.’94 This young man responded: ’93Blessed are they that mourn.’94 Public opinion in those days said: ’93Blessed is the Roman eagle, the flap of whose wing startles nations, and the plunge of whose iron beak inflicts cruelty upon its enemies.’94 This young man responded: ’93Blessed are the merciful.’94 Popular opinion said: ’93An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’94 In other words, if a man knocks out your eye, knock his out. If a man breaks your tooth, break his. Retort for retort; sarcasm for sarcasm; irony for irony; persecution for persecution; wound for wound. Christ said: ’93Pray for them that despitefully use you.’94 They looked at his eye; it was like any other man’92s eye, except perhaps more speaking. They felt his hand; made of bone and muscle, and nerves, and flesh, just like any other hand. Yet what bold treatment of subjects, what supernatural demand, what strange doctrine! They felt the solid earth under them, and yet Christ said: ’93I bear up the pillars of this world.’94 They looked at the moon. He said: ’93I will turn it into blood.’94 They looked at the sea. He said: ’93I will hush it.’94 They looked at the stars. He said: ’93I will shake them down like untimely figs.’94 Did ever one so young say things so bold! It was all against him.

Again, I remark, there was no visible organization in his behalf, and that was against him. When men propose any great work they band together; they write letters of agreement; they take oaths of fealty; and the more and complete the organization, the more and complete the success. Here was one who went forth without any organization and alone. If men had a mind to join his company, all right; if they had not a mind to join in his company, all well. If they came, they were greeted with no loud salutation; if they went away, they were sent with no bitter anathema. Peter departed, and Christ turned and looked at him. That was all.

All this against him. Did any one ever undertake such an enterprise amid such infinite embarrassments and by such modes? And yet I am here to say that it ended in a complete triumph. Notwithstanding his worldly occupation, his poverty, his plain face, his unpretending garb, the fact that he was schoolless, the fact that he had a brief life, the fact that he was not accompanied by any visible organization’97notwithstanding all that, he utters, in an exhilaration which shall be prolonged in everlasting chorals: ’93I have finished the work thou gavest me to do.’94

If you have followed me in this line of remark you are ready to make two or three acknowledgments. The first is, that Christ was supernatural. ’93No man could go through all that,’94 you say, ’93without having a nature adjoined that was supernatural.’94 That arm’97amid its muscles and nerves and bones were intertwisted the energies of omnipotence. In the syllables of that voice there was the emphasis of the eternal God. That foot that walked the deck of the lightship on Gennesaret shall stamp kingdoms of darkness into demolition. This poverty-struck Christ owned Augustus, owned the Sanhedrin, owned Tiberius, owned all the castles on its beach, and all the skies that looked down into its water, owned all the earth and all the heavens. To him of the plain coat belonged the robes of celestial royalty. He who walked the road to Emmaus’97why, the lightnings were the fire-shod steeds of his chariot.

Yet there are those who look on and they see Christ turn water into wine, and they say: ’93Sleight of hand.’94 And they see Christ raise the dead to life, and they say: ’93Easily explained; not really dead, playing dead.’94 And they see Christ giving sight to the blind man, and they say: ’93Clairvoyant doctor.’94 Oh! what will they do on the day when Christ rises up in judgment, and the hills shall rock, and the trumpets shall call, peal on peal?

In the time of Theodosius the Great there was a great assault made upon the divinity of Jesus Christ, and during that time Theodosius the Great called his own son to sit with him on the throne, and be a copartner in the government of the empire; and one day the old bishop came and bowed down before Theodosius the emperor, and passed out of the room, and the emperor was offended, saying to the old bishop: ’93Why didn’92t you pay the same honor to my son, who shares with me in the government?’94 Then the old bishop turned to the young man and said: ’93The Lord bless thee, my young man,’94 but still paid him no such honor as he had paid to the emperor; and the emperor was still offended and displeased, when the old bishop turned to Theodosius the Great and said to him: ’93You are offended with me because I do not pay to your son, whom you have made copartner in the government of this empire, the same honor I pay you, and yet you encourage multitudes of people in your realm to deny the Son of God equal authority, equal power, with God the Father.’94

My subject also reassures us of the fact that in all our struggles we have a sympathizer. You cannot tell Christ anything new about hardship. I do not think that the wide ages of eternity will take the scars from his punctured side, and his lacerated temples, and his sore hands. You will never have a burden weighing so many pounds as that burden which Christ carried up the bloody hill. You will never have any suffering worse than that which he endured, when, with tongue hot and cracked and inflamed and swollen, he moaned: ’93I thirst.’94 You will never be surrounded by worse hostility than that which stood around Christ’92s feet, foaming, reviling, livid with rage, howling down his prayers and snuffing up the smell of blood. O ye faint-hearted! O ye troubled! O ye persecuted one! here is a heart that can sympathize with you.

Again, and lastly, I learn from all that has been said this morning, that Christ was awfully in earnest. If it had not been a momentous mission he would have turned back from it disgusted and discouraged. He saw you in a captivity from which he was resolved to extricate you, though it cost him all sweat, all tears, all blood. He came a great way to save you. He came from Bethlehem here, through the place of skulls, through the charnel house, through banishment. There was not amid all the ranks of the celestials one being who would have done as much for you. I lay his crushed heart at your feet today. Let it not be told in heaven that you deliberately put your foot on it. While it will take all the ages of eternity to celebrate Christ’92s triumph, I am here to make the startling announcement that because of the rejection of this mission on the part of some of you, all that magnificent work of garden and cross and grave is, so far as you are concerned, a failure.

Helena the Empress went to the Holy Land to find the cross of Christ. Getting to the Holy Land, there were three crosses excavated, and the question was which of the three crosses was Christ’92s cross. They took a dead body, tradition says, and put it upon one of the crosses, and there was no life; and they took the dead body and put it upon another cross, and there was no life. But tradition says, when the dead body was put against the third cross, it sprang up into life. The dead man lived again. Oh, that the life-giving power of the cross of the Son of God might start your dead soul into an eternal life, beginning this day. ’93Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage