285. LUKE 2:49: ALWAYS AT WORK

Luke 2:49: Always at Work

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?'97Luk_2:49 (A.V.).

1. We know how it sometimes happens that a scene which has been for years familiar and beloved suddenly greets us with a new impression. We have caught it from some unexpected angle, or a flying light has shot over it, bringing out some colour or some effect of perspective or of contrast that we never before hit upon. There it is, the old habitual place, which we fancied that we knew by heart, and yet there is a look in it to-day which we had never suspected, which we had always missed. A touch of beauty, a flash of significance, has given it a new consecration. The novelty of the effect is heightened by the very fact that it is brought out of material so intimately known.

Now, is not this often the case with the Four Gospels? Those wonderful books'97how well we seem to know them! From our earliest memories the familiar rhythms have sung '93the old, old story'94 in our ears. We turn the pages only to pass the eye along its habitual and anticipated sequences. And then, by a sudden stroke now and again, a fresh gleam of light falls, and some fragment of the gospel story starts into swift and radiant prominence. We had read that bit a thousand times before, yet it lay unmarked; pleasant, indeed, and helpful, one perhaps among many that we liked, yet with no special note. But to-day it stands out as if alone. A peculiar force lies about it. A splendid meaning breaks from it. How is it we can have passed it over so easily? How is it we ever missed its vivid interest?

Some such prominence has fallen in our day on the scene recorded by St. Luke to which the text refers. So strangely alone it is, this tale of the boyhood of Jesus, plucked out of the heart of that silence which broods round the long hours of the Lord's growth at Nazareth. Ah, how we pine to penetrate within that shrouding silence'97the silence during which the blessed Plant sprang up out of the dry ground. Would that we might follow the unrecorded process in the mystery of which He passed from the unconscious impotence of the Babe, passive in the manger, swathed in swaddling-clothes, to that full, ripe, conscious manhood of His ministry'97complete, self-mastered, sure-footed; clear in aim, in purpose, in decision; calm, measured, deliberate, and determined. Between the two moments lies the whole story of the upward growth.

2. If the veil of silence has fallen on so much that we cannot but desire to look into, with what an outbreak of relief do we fasten on this solitary story which the diligence of St. Luke has been guided to rescue out of all the hidden mystery of growth, for our loving attention! Here he has been allowed to bring before us, not merely the broad or secret process by which His human nature won its advances, but a most signal moment of its increase, when it arrived at a new level, as it were, at a bound.

Such a moment is never forgotten, the moment at which the boy ceases to see through the eyes of others, ceases to speak, to think, as others do about him; when he sees with his own eyes, and faces his own world, and seeks for his own interpretation of it. Such moments, when they come, are full of a great awe; we are rapt into a solitude of our own, in which we forget our earlier interests, which have become as a very little thing. We are absorbed in the passion of a spiritual discovery; we are caught up, young though we be, into the solemnity of those swift and sudden intuitions which have the

Power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence.

Many a man or woman can recall echoes of such times. Perhaps, long after we have forgotten them, we drop upon some fervid or grave resolution, written with our unformed hand, in a youthful diary, the record of some such momentous awakening. We smile as our eyes fall on that record, yet smile with a sigh of sad regret that, with all wiser intelligence, we have not retained the intense and earnest seriousness which makes sacred that old scrawl.

3. The words of our text, then, are the only words recovered from the childhood of Jesus. All the precious memory that Mary kept in her heart appears to have died with her.

She told it not; or something sealed

The lips of that evangelist.

Legends survive, enough; offspring of crude if devout imaginations, and so obviously spurious that there has never been any serious attempt to include them in sacred writ. In thirty years, one saying, and one only, survives. These are the first recorded words of Jesus, and every syllable is precious. The poet Wordsworth says that the child is father of the man; and surely in these words of Jesus we get a hint of all that the man Jesus is ever to become. As in a mountain lake one sees reflected the mountains and the forests and the procession of the clouds, so in this single sentence of Jesus is mirrored the entire New Testament land and sky.

4. What do these words signify? They claim Sonship'97'93my Father'94; they claim also the necessity of obeying the demands of Sonship'97'93I must'94; and they claim that what the Father demands of the Son is Service'97'93about my Father's business.'94 So we have'97

I. Sonship.

II. Surrender.

III. Service.

Sonship

'93My Father.'94

1. In His first words, Jesus claims Divine Paternity, and for Himself Divine Sonship. When His mother said '93Thy father and I have sought thee,'94 she meant Joseph, but when Jesus said '93my Father's business,'94 He did not mean Joseph, for He was not about Joseph's business when in the Temple, questioning, and being questioned by the doctors. We can put no other fair interpretation on the phrase '93my Father'94 than that which makes it refer to God, His Divine Father. It was His business that He was about when in The temple, not Joseph's.

'93My Father.'94 This was Jesus' name for God. When He spoke to God He always called Him '93Father.'94 When He was successful in His work, He said, '93Father, I thank thee.'94 When He was overcome with grief, He cried, '93Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass.'94 When He pleaded for His disciples, He said, '93Father, keep through thine own name these whom thou hast given me.'94 On the cross He prayed, '93Father, forgive them,'94 and with His last breath He said, '93Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'94 This is the word He wanted all men to use.

The first use of the name '93Father'94 by Jesus was to name God, not a man. Our souls first know an earthly father, then climb up as by a beautiful ladder of the soul to the idea of a heavenly Father. Jesus knew first the Father above. He lived under Him, carried Him in the sweetest centre of His being, had His will shaped by Him, and was inspired by hope and love and submission to Him. Little children grow up to call the man in their house, who gave them their life and provides that life with home and food, '93father,'94 '93my father.'94 But Jesus grew up to think of God as all this. From the first He was inspired by the thoughts of the strength and the love of God, His Father, and was a loyal child of the will of God.

I was telling her how sternly children were brought up fifty or sixty years ago; how they bowed to their father's empty chair, stood when he entered the room, did not dare speak unless they were spoken to, and always called him '93sir.'94 '93Did they never say '91father'? Did they not say it on Sundays for a treat?'94 A little while later, after profound reflection, she asked'97'93God is very old; does Jesus call Him Father?'94 '93Yes, dear; He always called Him Father.'94 It was only earthly fathers after all who did not suffer their babes to come to them.1 [Note: W. Canton, W. V.: Her Book, 122.]

2. Christ's first saying was not a moral precept, but a solemn declaration concerning His relation to God. He breaks forth on the world at the age of twelve, and claims to be the Son of the Eternal Father. Was it now that the consciousness of this great fact dawned upon Him, or was it present with Him during the whole of His early childhood in Nazareth? The confident calmness with which He utters it suggests that He was previously conscious of the relationship. As a Jewish boy, brought up in a devout religious home, He must have been early instructed in the Law and the Prophets. Before He was born, His mother was visited by an angel, who communicated to her a Divine message of marvellous significance. '93Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.'94 Would not His mother tell Him, before He reached the age of twelve, of this angelic visit and of the mysterious message? Could she, as a fond mother, well withhold it? While studying the Law and the Prophets, during the early years of childhood in Nazareth, His eye may have fallen on Isaiah's significant passage, '93Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.'94 Would He not at once interpret the meaning and, applying it to Himself, understand that He was the Immanuel who was to be born of a virgin? Had He read, or had there been read to Him, in the secluded home of Nazareth, the passage in Deu_18:18-19, '93I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him'94? Had He a glimpse of Himself when the passage was read? In the Temple, what portions of the Hebrew Scriptures were read in the service? Was it Isaiah 53, or Psalms 2, or Psalms 22, or Psalms 72, or Psalms 110? Were these included in the seven days' service, or in the discussion among the doctors? Did the child of twelve years hear any inward voice, saying, I am He of whom Psalmists and Prophets speak? Was the grandeur of His mission opening out to Him? Was the spirit of His mission possessing Him? Did He now say to Himself, in the mysterious depth of His own consciousness, '93For this cause came I unto this hour,'94 '93and how am I straitened until it be accomplished'94? When now He made the great announcement to His mother, that God is His Father and that He is the Son of God, did He not set His seal to the angel's mysterious words, '93He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest'94?

We are not warranted in affirming that the child meant all that the man afterwards meant by the claim to be the Son of God; nor are we any more warranted in denying that He did. We know too little about the mysteries of His growth to venture on definite statements of either kind. Our sounding lines are not long enough to touch bottom in this great word from the lips of a boy of twelve; but this is clear, that as He grew into self-consciousness, there came with it the growing consciousness of His Sonship to His Father in Heaven.

3. Jesus never speaks of His holding the same relationship as His disciples to God the Father. He never speaks to His disciples of '93our God,'94 or of '93our Father,'94 but of '93your Father,'94 and '93my Father'94; of '93your God,'94 and '93my God'94; implying that His relationship as Son is of a higher, diviner order than the relationship of the disciples as children of God. You may reply, that in the Lord's Prayer He says '93Our Father.'94 Yes, but He had said before, '93When ye pray, say, Our Father.'94 He puts the words into the mouths of His disciples, and does not intimate that He uses them Himself when He prays, or that He uses them conjointly with His disciples. Although known as the Lord's Prayer, it is a prayer which He could not offer. It contains a petition for forgiveness of sins, which only sinners could offer; and He, being sinless, could not join in the petition.

4. But Jesus said to the disciples '93When ye pray, say, Father.'94 For to us also there is a better life than the life of nature, and the Fatherhood into which Christ introduces us means that through faith in Him, and the entrance into our spirits of the Spirit of adoption, we receive a life derived from, and kindred with, the life of the Giver, and that we are bound not only to Him by the cords of love, but also to our parents by the ties of family affection. Sonship is the deepest thought about the Christian life. It was an entirely new thought when Jesus spoke to His disciples of their Father in heaven. It was a thrilling novelty when Paul bade servile worshippers realize that they were no longer slaves, but sons, and, as such, heirs of God. It was the rapture of pointing to a new star flaming out, as it were, that swelled in John's exclamation: '93Beloved, now are we the sons of God.'94

'93When ye pray, say, Father.'94 When you are worried, remember that God is your Father. When you ask God for blessings, remember how willing parents are to give good things to their children. God is both willing and able to give us every good thing, for everything belongs to God. And because everything belongs to God, Jesus treated everything with reverence. He would not allow men to swear by heaven or the earth or Jerusalem or their own head, for all these belonged to His Heavenly Father. He drove the traders from the Temple because they were desecrating the Temple of His Father. He cheered the hearts of His disciples by reminding them that the house of many mansions belongs to the Heavenly Father. All people were dear to Jesus because all of them were the children of God. Beggars and lepers and blind men and bad men, the most loathsome and forsaken of men were dear to His heart because they belonged to His Father in Heaven. To be worthy of His Father was His constant ambition and unfailing delight. '93My meat,'94 He said, '93is to do his will and to finish his work.'94

The idea that God is a loving, righteous Father, who has created me to be His child, capable of knowing Him and learning to sympathize with Him in love and goodness, and so to be partaker of His blessedness, and who is educating me for this inwardly and outwardly at every moment, is an idea which commends itself to me as light; and I find also that practically it is fruitful and good. There is no proof of this, except in our own human consciousness; but, also, there is no real proof against it, and I am compelled to regard it as eternal truth.1 [Note: Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, ii. 256.]

God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly '93our Father's business.'94 He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him if we are not happy ourselves.2 [Note: Ruskin, Ethics of the Dust (Works, xvii. 290).]

II

Surrender

'93I must.'94

1. All through Christ's life there runs, and occasionally comes into utterance, the sense of a Divine necessity laid upon Him; and here is the beginning, the very first time that the word occurs on His lips, '93I must.'94

Mark that great word '93must.'94 It was one of Jesus' earliest words, and He used it to the end. He was not ashamed to say that there were some things which He was obliged to do. Let no boy ever hesitate to say '93I must.'94 Many a man's life has been wrecked because he never learned, when a boy, to speak the words '93I must.'94 Jesus early learned the lesson, and so at thirty He could say, '93I must preach the gospel.'94 When men stood amazed at His tireless industry He said, '93I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day.'94

This great word '93must'94 is used about thirty times in the New Testament in relation to the mission of Christ, His work, His sufferings, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His mediatorial sovereignty, and His final victory over sin and Satan, and the word proceeds mostly from the lips of Christ Himself; in a few instances, it also proceeds from the sacred writers themselves; but even then, they seem only to echo the word which He had so solemnly used, and which, by frequent repetition, He had deeply impressed on their memory. For example take the following'97He showed '93unto his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem, and suffer many things'94; '93the scripture must be fulfilled'94; '93the Son of man must suffer many things'94; '93I must preach the kingdom of God'94; '93I must walk today, and to-morrow, and the day following'94; '93But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation'94; '93the passover must be killed'94; '93this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors'94; '93the Son of man must be delivered'94; '93all things must be fulfilled'94; '93even so must the Son of man be lifted up'94; '93he must rise again'94; '93he must reign.'94 Sometimes, under the pressure of this awful '93must,'94 although the word itself is not used, He yet employs phrases which are equivalent, and which indicate that He is under solemn necessity. '93I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.'94 The word '93must'94 is not there, but the meaning of it is, and the solemn pressure of it is felt. '93Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.'94 Again the word '93must'94 is not in this passage, but we hear the echo of it, feel the pressure of it, and the meaning of it is significantly emphasized.

2. There is as Divine and as real a necessity shaping our lives, because it lies upon and moulds our wills, if we have the child's heart, and stand in the child's position. In Jesus Christ the '93must'94 was not an external one, but He '93must be about His Father's business'94 because His whole inclination and will was submitted to the Father's authority. And that is what will make any life sweet, calm, noble. '93The love of Christ constraineth us.'94 There is a necessity which presses upon men like iron fetters; there is a necessity which wells up within a man a fountain of life, and does not so much drive as sweetly incline the will, so that it is impossible for him to be other than a loving, obedient child.

Some very little children sometimes use the word '93must'94 very naughtily. There is an old saying, you know, '93Must is for the king and not for his people.'94 But '93must'94 is sometimes a very nice little word. '93I must do.'94 Why did Jesus say that? '93Oh, I so love My Father that I cannot help it. My love to My Father compels Me to do it.'94 '93Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?'941 [Note: J. Vaughan, Children's Sermons, 150.]

3. The words '93I must'94 on the lips of Jesus suggest that the higher freedom implies the higher necessity. If ever any man was free that man was Jesus. He, indeed, achieved that moral and spiritual freedom after which we toil in vain. The bondage of the world, the flesh and the devil was a bondage from which He was absolutely and utterly emancipated. He at least was no slave to the opinion of society, or merely human authorities. In Herod He saw no king, but only a sinful man whose soul was in peril. In Caiaphas He saw no priest but only a fallible mortal, needing to be enlightened by the Spirit of God. He was free from all unworthy motives and inferior ambitions. He was free from the hesitation and timidities inspired by doubt. He was the free child of truth, righteousness, love. And He, the mighty Conqueror and Master of all wrong and error, was so because He was the perfect Servant of truth and right. The higher freedom was the higher necessity.

The law of His childhood was the law of His manhood. Just as one of your little ones floating a walnut-shell upon a bowl of water calls into operation all, or nearly all, the laws that operate when an ocean-liner is launched, so within the utterance of this child-spirit of Jesus there are contained those majestic spiritual revelations which go far to compose the gospel. He called men to love God more perfectly, that they might be subdued more completely to the obedience of God. He knew that when He taught them to say '93Our Father,'94 He taught them to say '93We must obey God rather than man.'94 Surrender was latent in sonship.

Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.1 [Note: Carlyle, '93Essay on Burns'94 (Miscellanies, ii.3).]

III

Service

'93My Father's business.'94

1. When only twelve Jesus had grasped the great idea that life must be lived for a purpose. There is business to do and the business belongs to God. In the Temple Jesus forgot all about Himself. Some boys study because they are compelled to, or because they want to make a show, or because they expect to use their education in making money later on; but Jesus listened to His teachers and pondered the lessons which they set Him in order to advance the glory of His Father. All kinds of work take on new lustre when we think of it as being given to us by our Father. Men sometimes say, '93my business,'94 '93my studies,'94 '93my plans,'94 forgetting that God has anything to do with them. Everything we do, if we do it rightly, is our Father's business. It is ours and it is also His. Our life is ours and His, so also is our work. We are interested in our tasks, and so is He. We bead over our studies, and so does He. Everything that touches us also touches Him; and that boys and girls should obey their parents and pay attention to their teachers is not only their business, it is also the business of the Heavenly Father.

Many Christians tell me that they have no vocation to service; that they do not know what to do; that they would be glad to serve God, if only they knew how and where! These are they who were not on the alert, when first they knew the Lord, to set themselves at once about their Father's business; or who have fallen from their first love and zeal; or have separated service from the consciousness of salvation; and I fear, in many cases, with the abandonment or the neglect of service, have lost the blessed consciousness of sonship. I am more and more satisfied, as I come to know myself and my surroundings better, and those of other Christians as well, that we do not so much need to make opportunities as to embrace them when they are presented to us. The majority of life's failures, especially in Christian life, grow out of not promptly embracing opportunities for service. Shakespeare tells us that '93There is a tide which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'94 It is equally true that there are spiritual instincts and promptings which, if yielded to, lead on to most blessed and useful Christian life; but which, if neglected, leave the Christian to comparative shipwreck.1 [Note: G. F. Pentecost, Sermons, 103.]

In matters of business take this as a maxim, that it is not enough to give things their beginning, direction, or impulse; we must also follow them up and never slacken our efforts until they are brought to a conclusion.2 [Note: Counsels and Reflections of F. Guicciardini.]

I thought of life, the outer and the inner,

As I was walking by the sea,

How vague, unshapen this, and that, though thinner,

Yet hard and clear in its rigidity.

Then took I up the fragment of a shell,

And saw its accurate loveliness,

And searched its filmy lines, its pearly cell,

And all that keen contention to express

A finite thought. And then I recognized

God's working in the shell from root to rim,

And said'97'93He works till He has realized'97

Oh Heaven! if I could only work like Him!'943 [Note: T. E. Brown, Old John and other Poems, 128.]

2. '93My Father's business.'94 What is this business? In one word, it is redemption, to bring lost humanity into a salvable condition; to provide for the restoration of purity, blessedness and immortality, to men who have forfeited all by transgression; to save from sin, its power, pollution, and penalties, all who apply to God for mercy. Or, in other words, to establish in this fallen world a kingdom of grace and salvation, whose gates shall be thrown wide open, and into which all the alienated race of man may enter, on condition of renouncing for ever their allegiance to the Evil One, and consecrating themselves loyally to their Redeeming King.

John Vassar once spoke to a lady about her soul, and the lady told her husband of what he had said. '93I should have told him,'94 said her husband, '93to mind his own business.'94 '93If you had been there,'94 said the lady, '93you would have thought it was his business.'941 [Note: H. Thorne, Notable Sayings of the Great Teacher, 65.]

(1) One part of that redemption which was the business of Christ was to offer a perfect example. When He sums up His own life, it is at one time, '93I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do'94; '93my meat is to do the will of him that sent me'94: at another it is, '93I am among you as he that serveth'94'97as the Servant of men; '93the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.'94 And we see why the two go together. The true child shares the true parent's thoughts and purposes, and feels as he feels. And so the child of God, because he knows that He is the Father of His human creatures, and that He is love, and means nothing but love for them, must himself begin to share that love, that care, begin to feel the zeal to help, the wish to serve.

God had written divers books of example in the lives of the saints. One man was noted for one virtue, and another for another. At last, God determined that He would gather all His works into one volume, and give a condensation of all virtues in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now He determined to unite all the parts into one, to string all the pearls on one necklace, and to make them all apparent around the neck of one single person. The sculptor finds here a leg from some eminent master, and there a hand from another mighty sculptor. Here he finds an eye, and there a head full of majesty. He saith, within himself, '93I will compound these glories, I will put them all together; then it shall be the model man. I will make the statue par excellence, which shall stand first in beauty, and shall be noted ever afterwards as the model of manhood.'94 So said God, '93There is Job'97he hath patience; there is Moses'97he hath meekness; there are those mighty ones who all have eminent virtues. I will take these, I will put them into one; and the man Christ Jesus shall be the perfect model of future imitation.'94 Now, I say that all Christ's life He was endeavouring to do His Father's business in this matter.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

It seems as if nothing could be more impossible than to follow our Lord's example. He was God, and we are but weak and sinful men. How can we follow the Divine example in our small, petty life? How can we follow the Divine example when there is within us so much that is selfish, so much that is hard, so much that is false, and so much that is ungenerous? How can we follow His example? And yet He Himself has told us that even to give a cup of cold water is a thing that He will notice, if it is done in His spirit. In His spirit; and that spirit ought to animate all the actions of every-day life. No doubt it is here, here particularly, that it seems as if our power to obey His precepts must break down. To follow His example'97how can it be done? But the Lord Himself, when He calls us to follow His example, knows our weakness and knows what is the nature of the task that is put upon us; He enters into all the folly and all the blindness and all the pains and all the temptations that mark our characters and lower our lives; He enters into it all. Without sin Himself, He nevertheless shared all the troubles of human life, and as if to encourage us these strange and awful words have been written by His direction, that He '93learned obedience by the things which he suffered.'94 He learned obedience because He passed through all that was needed to make obedience perfect. He learned not to obey; but He learned what to obey really meant. His humanity had to pass through what our humanity passes through. He obeyed'97He had no need to learn that'97but He learned what was the struggle, what was the trouble, that perpetually impeded obedience. He learned to feel it, and still He retains that humanity which felt it, and He sympathizes with every difficulty that besets our endeavours to please Him. He sympathizes, for He knows it all; He sympathizes because He has passed through it all. And if we are to abide in Him, we, too, must learn obedience, not only in the sense in which He learned it; we must not only learn what it is to obey, but we must learn to obey. And the Lord knows us through and through; He sees whether we are following His example, or not, and His loving mercy is with us all the time.1 [Note: Archbishop Temple.]

(2) Another part was to offer Himself a sacrifice. Twenty-one years from this Passover, He Himself must be the slain Lamb, His must be the blood shed. These shadowy typical ceremonials will then be abolished, and will cease for ever; for He Himself will become the one Priest, the one Sacrifice, the one Mediator at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavenly sanctuary. It is said that He increased in wisdom. During these seven days of the Passover, He must have added immensely to His store of knowledge concerning the work He had to do, and the sacrifice He had to make as the world's Redeemer. That Passover was an object-lesson, whose typical meaning He would not fail to understand and to apply.

It was His Father's business made Him sweat great drops of blood; His Father's business ploughed His back with many gory furrows; His Father's business pricked His temple with the thorny crown; His Father's business made Him mocked and spit upon; His Father's business made Him go about bearing His cross; His Father's business made Him despise the shame when, naked, He hung upon the tree; His Father's business made Him yield Himself to death, though He needed not to die if so He had not pleased; His Father's business made Him tread the gloomy shades of Gehenna, and descend into the abodes of death; His Father's business made Him preach to the spirits in prison; and His Father's business took Him up to heaven, where He sitteth on the right hand of God, doing His Father's business still!2 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

3. This is the necessity that lies upon every one of the sons of God. In other words, the law of life, as illustrated by the example of our Lord and Master, and iterated and reiterated by all the lessons of human experience, is the law of Divine obedience through human service. The love of God is best shown in the love of men. Those souls are the most reverent, and most completely fulfil the Divine will, that yield the most readily and cheerfully to the pressure of human need.

(1) This business may not be regarded as apart from the ordinary, daily duties of life. What one is called upon to perform day by day, however ordinary and monotonous, may lie directly in the line of Divine appointment. It is hardly fair to assume that Joseph and Mary were not about their Father's business. Nor is there any reason for supposing that Jesus meant to imply that they were not, although asserting for Himself obedience to the higher mandate. By attending simply and unostentatiously to the chosen or appointed task, we may find the angels of God coming forth to meet us as they met Jacob of old on his way from Syria to Palestine.

It is possible that some of you may be secretly wishing that you could spend all your days in public prayer, in the hallowed engagements of the sanctuary, in preaching the gospel or in teaching the young; let me say to you that there is not an errand-boy in the streets of London who cannot be turning his work into the business of God; all business may be made our Father's, by doing it in our Father's spirit, and for our Father's glory. Do not yield yourselves to the fallacy that religion is separate and distinct from all the common engagements of life. The doorkeeper in the poorest commercial establishment in this city may be doing his Father's business quite as much as the elders and angels that are around the throne. Everything depends upon your spirit. You may make the commonest duty uncommon by coming to it in a sanctified and heavenly spirit.1 [Note: Joseph Parker.]

(2) The business of the Father may be performed in the treatment we give to current questions. Every age has its problems. The heart of the Roman Empire in the time of Tiberius and Nero was stirred by great questions, as is shown by the interrogatories of Pilate and Felix and Herod Agrippa. Our own age is no exception in this respect to the ages that have preceded it. Indeed, it would almost seem as if Christianity, in its fearless challenge of every phase of human thought and of every variety of organized life, had created problems which are, and must be for ever, almost the despair of human wisdom and effort. In whatever direction we turn the light of our faith, we seem not only to expose to observation the deep struggles of the individual soul over the mysteries of being, but to bring into view those actions, habits, institutions and relations of men which must be reformed before the Kingdom of God shall come. We cannot shut our eyes to these things; we cannot push them aside as of no consequence; we cannot even fold our arms in indifference before them. They are here; they demand consideration, and must and will have some intelligent treatment from us.

How to get the idle rich to abandon their idleness and help to carry some of the burdens of those who are now too heavy laden; how to equalize to some extent the favours of fortune and, while discouraging an over-accumulation of riches in a few hands, take away at least some of the sharper stings of poverty; how to avert the arrows of misfortune from those who are exposed to the pitiless assault of circumstances which they have done nothing to create and which they are powerless of themselves to change; how to lighten the work of those who have too much of it and give work to those who, without employment, would yet be glad to earn an honest wage; in short, how to exalt the lowly and bring down the proud, and make the pathway of men blossom with comfort and kindliness and goodwill, and thus give us a foretaste of heavenly peace; these are some of the new tasks of this new time. Those who love their fellow-men are summoned to these undertakings. Those who have leisure and intelligence are without excuse if they let the summons go unheeded. The voice that calls is the voice of God, and they who obey the call may be sure that they are about their Father's business.

Fawcett's great principle (which, of course, he shared in general with Mill) was one which would only be disputed in general terms by an Egyptian anchorite or an Indian faquir'97Live in camel's-hair raiment, and you may fairly denounce the rich and regard poverty as a blessing. Fawcett, who preferred broadcloth, held that the master evil of the day was the crushing poverty of great masses of the population. To make men better, you must make them richer'97that is, less abjectly poor, less stunted and shackled by the ceaseless pressure of hard, material necessities. Religious, moral, and intellectual reforms are urgently needed, but they cannot become fruitful unless the soil be prepared. Apply all your elevating influences, but also drive the wolf from the door or they will never have fair play. Men ought to desire more, or rather ought to have further-reaching desires. They should be more prudent and thoughtful'97oftener at the savings-bank and less often at the public-house. That was the pith of Fawcett's teaching as an economist, and few who call themselves Christians will admit that it is condemned by Christianity.1 [Note: Leslie Stephen, Life of Henry Fawcett, 140.]

(3) But, however we act and wherever we go, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are all the time in the presence of the living God. We may be dwelling in a world of sense, but we are also in a world of spirit. This universe is God's universe. His power is manifest in it, and His spirit pervades it. We cannot go where He is not. That is the thought which is given to sober us and to impart steadiness to all our aims. Before it all considerations of the temporal vanish. We are no longer mere denizens of this mortal world. We are spiritual beings, living in a spiritual world, endowed with spiritual attributes, having an immortal destiny, and are indeed the children of the Highest.

When the knowledge of our immortality dawns upon us, how little then our hearts are set upon the pleasant garniture of life, and the riches which it then becomes almost a delight to resign! Our mind is fixed no longer on sweet colours and sounds, because it knows that it is passing through them, and that they are but symbols of the fulness and unity that shall be. Those whom we love are no longer merely those with whom we use delight, and from whom we gather joy, but souls bound to us for ever by a stainless bond, which no lapse of time can hurt or break. And therefore we make haste to cast out of our life all sick and jarring elements, and to agree swiftly while we are in the way together.

The thought of sweet things that must fade is no longer a mere poignant sentiment, but a sign of renewal and freedom. Memories are no longer mere hopeless phantoms, but as the stones of the desolate place out of which the wayfarer piles his pillow. We do not lose the sense that things belong to us, but instead of their being things which we hoard for a little and then reluctantly and pathetically resign, they are ours for ever. The old days of kindness and regret, when we grasped at what seemed so solid, but lapsed like the snow-crystal while we held our breath, are no longer times to muse ruefully over and to forget if we can, but miry ways which led us, how blindly and dully, to the house of life itself; and instead of viewing pain and death as cruel gradations of decay, through which we fall into silence, we know them to be the last high steps of the ascent from which the view of life itself, with all its wide plains and woods, its homesteads and towns, will break upon our delighted eyes.

It may be said, '93Can we live life on this level of hope and expectation?'94 No, we cannot all in a moment. But we can return again and again, in times of grief and pain, to contemplate the truth, and drink fresh draughts of comfort and healing. The one thing that we must determine is not to acquiesce in being entangled in the earthly things that catch and wind, like the grasses and branches of the brake, about our climbing feet. Not to make terms with mortal and material things, not to abide in them, that is our business here and now. To take life as we find it, but never to forget that it is neither the end or the goal, that it is at once the problem and the solution.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, 72.]

Guest from a holier world,

Oh, tell me where the peaceful valleys lie!

Down in the ark of life, when thou shalt fly,

Where will thy wings be furled?

Where is thy native nest?

Where the green pastures that the blessed roam?

Impatient dweller in thy clay-built home,

Where is thy heavenly rest?

On some immortal shore,

Some realm away from earth and time, I know;

A land of bloom, where living waters flow,

And grief comes nevermore.

Faith turns my eyes above;

Day fills with floods of light the boundless skies

Night watches calmly with her starry eyes

All tremulous with love.

And, as entranced I gaze,

Sweet music floats to me from distant lyres:

I see a temple, round whose golden spires

Unearthly glory plays!

Beyond those azure deeps

I fix thy home,'97a mansion kept for thee

Within the Father's house, whose noiseless key

Kind Death, the warder, keeps!2 [Note: Albert Laighton.]

Always at Work

Literature

Biggs (C. R. D.), The Diaconate of Jesus, 19.

Burrell, (D. J.), The Church in the Fort, 63.

Calthrop (G.), The Lost Sheep Found, 89.

Campbell (J. M.), Bible Questions, 184.

Campbell (R. J.), The Song of Ages, 221.

Capen (E. H.), The College and the Higher Life, 109.

Cox (S.), The Bird's Nest, 16.

Edwards (H.), The Spiritual Observatory, 97.

Goodman (J. H.), The Lordship of Christ, 143.

Gregory (S.), Among the Roses, 191.

Houghton (W.), The Secret of Power, 65.

Howatt (J. R.), The Children's Pew, 177.

Howatt (J. R.), Jesus the Poet, 213.

Jefferson (C. E.), My Father's Business, 101.

King (E.), The Love and Wisdom of God, 266.

Pentecost (G.), Marylebone Presbyterian Church Pulpit, i. No. 29.

Percival (J.), Some Helps for School Life, 101.

Pope (W. B.), Discourses, 107.

Ridgeway (C. J.), The King and His Kingdom, 60.

Roberts (R.), My Jewels, 126.

Salmon (G.), Sermons, 33.

Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 307.

Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, iii. (1857), No. 122.

Vaughan (C. J.), Doncaster Sermons, 375.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons to Children, v. 147.

Wace (H.), Some Central Points of our Lord's Ministry, 21.

West (R. A.), The Greatest Things in the World, 63.

Whyte (A.), The Walk, Conversation, and Character of Jesus Christ our Lord, 59.

Wilkinson (J. B.), Mission Sermons, ii. 90.

Children's Pulpit: First Sunday after the Epiphany, ii. 345.

Christian World Pulpit, x. 126 (B. S. Bird); xlv. 147 (J. A. Beet); lxvii. 22 (T. V. Tymms); lxxxi. 33 (H. M. Burge).

Churchman's Pulpit: Sermons to the Young, xvi. 78 (A. P. Stanley).

Sunday Magazine, 1876, p. 850 (R. H. Smith); 1885, p. 734 (F. R. Havergal); 1895, p. 136 (B. Waugh).

Autor: JAMES HASTINGS