549. Snowy Locks of Christ

Snowy Locks of Christ

Rev_1:14 : ’93His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow.’94

Tradition and an ancient document tell us that the hair of Christ, when he was upon earth, was chestnut color to the ears, and then flowed down in golden curls upon the neck. My text says that his hair was white; that is, of course, a figurative representation. As Jesus died at thirty-three years of age, we are apt to think of him as a young man; but he is living now. That makes him more than an octogenarian, more than a centenarian’97ay, nearly nineteen hundred years of age. But the Bible tells us that he was present at the creation of the world; that makes him six thousand years old. Ay, Jesus says of himself, ’93I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the world was’94; so that makes him as old as eternity.

You wear a suit of clothes for a little while, then put it off not to put it on again; and so the Lord Jesus put on the raiment of our humanity for a little while, and then doffed it forever. He is an aged Christ; his hairs are white like wool, white like snow. If God will help me I will tell you of the sorrow, the beauty, and the antiquity of Jesus.

There is nothing that so soon changes the color of the hair as trouble. You see some man today with hair jet-black; if you see him five years from now, his hair will be white. Meantime, his property is gone, or he has been bereft of his family, and that sorrow accounts for it. Marie Antoinette came to Paris greeted by a shout, the mightiest Frenchmen her escort. The populace actually tried to unharness the horses from her carriage, that they themselves might draw it. Beautiful in person, beautiful in heart, the whole French nation worshiped her. A little time passed on, and I behold her on a hurdle, or sled, drawn toward the place of execution, her arms pinioned behind her, the glory of her face extinguished. Oh, the change! History says of this woman that’97imprisoned, her husband executed, her children torn from her embrace, the knife of the guillotine sharpening for her neck’97in one night her hair turned white.

Well, surely, Jesus my Lord had enough sorrow to whiten his hair. He had dwelt in the palaces of eternity’97the archanged one of his body-guard, the unfallen ones of heaven glad to draw his chariot. Me-thinks, when he came out on the balcony of heaven, there was a waving of palm branches and shouting. But here you see him drawn on the hurdle of our humanity, toward the place of execution. Castles by the sea and Roman palaces, in which kings’92 children were born; but this son of a King, born in the outhouse of a tavern! Potentates with luxuriant tables, and surrounded by cupbearers; but this King the disciples find one morning on the beach, frying his own fish and toasting his own bread for breakfast; his feet shod with ordinary sandals’97a sole of leather fastened with thongs; his head bared under the hot Judean sun; seated on the well-curb thirsty; his coat gambled for by the roughs who wanted it; the police after him for blasphemy; the filthy villains spitting on his clean cheek; pursued as though he were a tiger; his dying drink vinegar, sucked out of a sponge. Everything seemed leaving him, even the light of day running away, and leaving him in the hands of the night’97the black nurse that bent over him; forsaken by everything but fiends, executioners, and the darkness’97oh! methinks that was the night in which his hair turned white.

We would have thought that some one of the Roman soldiers would have had humanity and magnanimity enough to step out from the ranks and say, ’93Stop this butchery!’94 that Scorn would have uncurled its lip and said, ’93Enough!’94 that Revenge would have cried out, ’93I am satisfied!’94 that Pain would have said, ’93I have done my worst!’94 that the swords would have snapped off at the hilt and the lances broken in twain. No! no! The world wanted blood; and as long as a single globule remained in the arteries or the veins of Christ, the anguish must go on, and the wine-press keep crushing the purple cluster until the last drop was out.

Oh, freezing horror! the guillotine was mercy compared with it! Pang of nail! Pang of spear! Pang of thirst! Pang of betrayal! Pang of vicarious suffering! I hear the hammers ringing through the darkness, loud and fierce, thump! thump! thump! against the cross. But the work is done! The groaning has ceased, the last Roman regiment has marched down the hill, the victim is taken from the tree, his dead weight coming down on the hands of those who carry him, his hand falling where it will, his head falling back or sidewise, as they allow it. Let the thunders toll at this funeral of a God, and the organ of the winds weep this requiem: ’93He was despised and rejected of men; wounded for our transgressions.’94 ’93Behold where they have laid him!’94 Ah, methinks the golden curls have gone from his cheek, and the auburn has faded from his brow, and ’93his hair is white as the wool, as white as the snow.’94 Sorrow and anguish have turned it.

My text sets forth the beauty of Christ. Whims-cal fashion changes its mind very often as to which is the best color for the hair. The Romans sprinkled theirs with silver and gold. Our ancestors powdered theirs white. Human custom decides this and decides that; but God declares that he likes frost-color best when he says, ’93The hoary head is a crown of glory if it be in the way of righteousness.’94 Indeed, is there anything more beautiful? This is the way God has of saying to a man, at the end of an upright life: ’93You have been honorable.’94 Alas! for those who will not take the adornment, and who swear by all the dyes of the apothecary that they will not have it. Nevertheless, gray hair is a crown of glory. If is beautiful in the church, it is beautiful in the home, it is beautiful at the wedding, it is beautiful at the burial.

Waiting for the door of one of my parishioners to open, I stand at the front steps, and, looking through the window, see grandfather with a child on each knee’97his face beaming with benedictions. He is almost through with his journey, but he has an interest in those who are starting. The racket is almost too much for the old man’92s head, but he says nothing. The granddaughter, half-grown, stands behind the chair and runs her hand through his locks. As grandfather stoops down to kiss the children good-night, it is sunset embracing sunrise; it is the spring crocuses around about the edge of the snow-bank; it is the white locks, beautiful in the domestic circle.

Grandfather is in church. His comrades are gone. His sons and daughters, though grown to be men and women, will never be anything but boys and girls to him. He looks around the audience and sees so many strange faces, and he wonders why people do not talk as loud as they used to. As some old hymn comes through his soul, his memory brings back the revival scenes of a half-century. He wonders where all the old people are. His second sight has come, and he rarely uses spectacles. With a cane in both hands, he sits at the end of the pew. Do not crowd him, he will soon pass over the river and see the King in his beauty. White locks beautiful in the Lord’92s temple.

Two hearts have been affianced. Against the marriage altar there dashes a wave of orange blossoms. The two families, in a semicircle, stand about the altar. Father and mother come, of course, and give the first congratulations; but let them not tarry too long; for grandfather is coming up, with trembling step. ’93God be good to you both, my children!’94 he says, as he takes their hands. Then he seals his word with an old man’92s kiss. The bridal veil was graceful, but I know something more graceful than that. The vase of flowers on the altar was beautiful, but I know something more beautiful than that. The light that danced in the socket was bright, but I know something brighter than that. It is the long white locks of grandfather at the wedding.

Pull the door-bell very gently; it is wrapped with the black and the white’97the signals of mourning for a child. The throngs have come in. There is weeping in the hall, weeping in the parlor, and weeping in the nursery. The grandchild was a great pet with grandpa; but he says, ’93I must control myself for the sake of others;’94 so he goes all through the house a comforter. He says, ’93The Lord has taken the child’97it is well with it, it is well with it.’94 Grandfather may sometimes have been a little querulous, but it is a great consolation to have him now. The song, the prayer, the sermon, may have been comforting, but more comforting than anything that could be said are the white locks of grandfather at the burial.

Oh! are you not ready to admit that my text means the beauty of Christ, when it says, ’93His hairs were white like the wool, white like the snow’94? Have you not seen him? Through the dark night of your sin has he not flashed upon your vision? Beautiful when he comes to pardon, beautiful when he comes to comfort, beautiful when he comes to save. A little child was crying very much during the time of an eclipse. It got so dark at noon she was afraid, and she kept sobbing, and could not be silenced until, after a while, the sun came out again, and she clapped her hands, and said, ’93Oh, the sun! the sun!’94 Some of us have been in the darkness of our sin; eclipse after eclipse has passed over the soul; but after a while the Sun of Righteousness poured his beams upon our hearts, and we cried, ’93The sun! the sun!’94 Beautiful down in the straw of the Bethlehem khan. Beautiful in his mother’92s shawl, a fugitive to Egypt! Beautiful with his feet in the Galilean surf! Beautiful with the children hanging about his neck! Beautiful in the home circle of Bethany! Fairer than the sons of men; dayspring from on high; light for those who sit in darkness; rose of Sharon; lily of the valley’97altogether lovely! As the sheep from the washing go up the bank, their fleece makes you think of the rising cloud, because of its brightness; but makes you think more of him whose hair is as white as the wool; and on the morning after a snowstorm you look out of the window before the wheel or the hoof has passed, and the brightness is almost insufferable, and it makes you think of him whose hair is ’93white like the snow.’94

Again, my text presents the antiquity of Jesus. It is no new Christ that has come. It is no new experimenter coming to the crucible. The telegraph does not announce the arrival of a stranger. It is an aged Christ. If I should tell you that he was a thousand million years old, it would give you no idea of his antiquity. He comes down through the periods when there were no worlds, before light had struck its first spark, or the first angelic wing was spread for flight. He saw the first star beam on the darkness, the first wave swing to its place, and he heard the first rock jar down to its place in the mountain socket. ’93His hair is white as the wool, white as the snow’94’97an aged Christ. That gives me so much confidence. It is the same Jesus that heard David’92s prayer, the same on whose breast John leaned. It is the same one who stood in the Mamertine dungeon with Paul, who watched the ashes of Wyclif when they were thrown into the river, and who stood by Hugh Latimer in the fire. He comes down bearing the pains and the agonies of Christendom. After six thousand years of sin-pardoning, burden-bearing, and wound-healing, he knows how to do it. You cannot bring him a new case. He has had ten thousand cases just like it before. He is an aged Christ.

There are times when we want chiefly the young and the gay about us; but when I am in deep trouble, give me a fatherly old man or a motherly old woman. More than once, in the black night of sorrow, have I hailed the gray dawn of an old man’92s hair. Grandmother’92s hand may tremble too much to hold the vial in the sick-room, and her eye be too dim to count the drops, but surely you have all felt that there is no hand so competent to pour out the medicine of Christian consolation as an aged hand. When I want courage for life, I love to think of Christ as young and ardent; but when I feel the need of sympathy and condolence, I bring before me the picture of an old Jesus, his hairs as white as the wool, as white as the snow.

Is there not a balm in this for the aged? Mythology tells us of one who got aged, and they tried to make him young again. And so they took herbs, and they took fragments of owls and wolves, and put them in a caldron and stirred them up, and gave some to the man, and instantly his hair was blackened, his eyes brightened, his forehead smoothed, and his foot bounded like the roe. But the Gospel intimates that if a man knows Jesus Christ in his soul, he shall never get old; or, having got old before he came to Jesus, he shall be made young again. I pluck some of these herbs from the Hill of Zion, and I put them in a caldron and stir them up, and I take out life and health for the soul. One drop shall make everlasting youth flash through your veins. Jesus of the white locks is sympathetic with all those who have white locks. If you get weary in life, here is an arm to lean upon. If your eye gets dim, he will pick out the way for you. He will never leave you.

To the Jesus of the auburn locks, as the Jews saw him, to the Jesus of the white hair, as John described him, I commend the young and the old. If you are in trouble, go to him for comfort. If you are guilty, go to him for pardon. Take his yoke, it is easy’97his burden, it is light.

I saw in Oxford, England, one summer, a picture of St. Christopher, bringing to mind a wonderful legend that some of you may know about. He had been in the habit of fording a stream and taking people across it. He heard a child crying. The child wanted to pass that stream, so he took the child on his shoulders and started to ford the stream; but the little child grew heavier and heavier, and before he got to the other bank he found he had a giant on his shoulders, and was almost borne down in the flood. The legend says he found it was Jesus whom he was carrying. Ah! my friends, that is not my religion. Religion, instead of getting heavier and heavier, gets lighter and lighter; and that which was a cross, heavy enough almost to break the back, becomes two hands, instead of pushing us down, lifting us up the steep of heaven, where the black shall be exchanged for the white’97white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb; white horses in the procession of eternal victory; white flocks, following the good Shepherd over the heavenly pastures’97while presiding over all the scene, and seated on a great white throne, is the one whose ’93hairs are white as the wool, as white as the snow.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage