"So JOHN was beheaded in the prison, and his head
was brought on a tray and given to the girl, who took it to her mother.
John's disciples came for his body and buried it. Then they told Jesus what
had happened. As soon as Jesus heard the news, he went off by himself in a
boat to a remote area to be alone." Matthew 14:10-13
John 1:1-25; Luke 3:1-20; Matt. 2:1-20.
What an affecting scene is the burial of JOHN the
Baptist--the first martyr of the gospel age! A handful of attached disciples
have taken up the headless body of their Master, and consigned it to its
last earthly resting-place. And, most touching of all--when they had
completed these sad offices of affection--returning the dust to its kindred
dust--they hastened away to unburden their sorrows to One who, they knew,
was in all cases, but would be pre-eminently in the present--a "Brother
born for adversity." "Then they told Jesus what had happened!"
With all the deep and intense sympathies of His holy
human nature, and in the true spirit of a mourner, that gracious Redeemer
seeks, in this hour of bitter sorrow, the sacredness of retirement. "As
soon as Jesus heard the news, he went off by himself in a boat to a remote
area to be alone." The cruel blow seems to have been inflicted in the
castle or fort of Machaerus, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, where
Herod (on his way to settle a feud with King Aretas) was holding a court
festival. The faithful reprover of his lusts was pining in a dungeon under
the banqueting hall; and the rash oath that had escaped the royal lips,
enables his paramour to accomplish her deep-laid plot of revenge and blood.
The mourning disciples of the murdered prophet had
traversed a long and weary distance, all the way from Judea to Galilee, to
pour their sorrows into the ear of the Great Sympathizer. After mingling
His grief with theirs, and imparting, doubtless, some sublime though
unrecorded solaces, that Divine Redeemer, leaving the mourners to their
tears, crosses the lake of Tiberias to a sequestered spot, where He may muse
in silence over the terrible bereavement, and give vent in solitude to His
grief at the loss of His earliest human companion and friend.
If we hear of no eulogy pronounced by the Savior over the
Baptist's tomb, or in the ears of his disciples after his burial;
that verdict and eulogy was anticipated at an earlier period, to which we
shall presently advert, when He, who "spoke as never man spoke," declared,
"I assure you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the
Baptist." There is something unique and picturesque about the whole history
and character of this singular man. Travelers at this day, in the
little-frequented gorges, the rugged ravines around the Jordan
rapids--describe the remarkable dress and appearance of the Bedouins or
Dervishes, with their bronzed skins, and the striped Bedouin cloak or
blanket, crudely woven of camel's hair, fastened with a leathern belt round
their naked bodies. Their homes either the caves and grottoes of the
wilderness, or a rustic arbor or canopy formed of branches stripped from the
abundant trees around. Their food the wild fruits of the mountain, the honey
found in the rocks, or the nutritious manna exuding from the tamarisk tree.
We cannot wonder that these modern pictures should be
suggestive of the olden scene which attracted wondering thousands to those
inaccessible glens of eastern Palestine, in the dawn of the Christian era.
The voice of prophecy had been silent for four hundred
ears. God had sealed up the vision since the days of Malachi. With the
exception of a few devout souls, who, like Simeon and Anna, "waited for the
consolation of Israel," the spiritual life of Judah was well-near
extinct--religion had degenerated into a round of empty forms and worthless
routines. Its truthful type and delineation was that of Ezekiel's Valley,
filled with bones and skeletons, from which all animation had departed. But
the long night of darkness has at last spent itself--there are indications
of coming dawn. Tidings spread that the prophetic spirit has again
revived--that a seer in the spirit of Elijah, if not the great Tishbite
himself, had appeared in the remoter wilds of Judea! At, all events, One
had risen, bold enough to make his voice heard, summoning, like the old
prophets, the degenerate nation to repentance.
The desert was alive with crowds hurrying to listen to
his message. They formed a strange and heterogeneous assemblage. There were
rough laborers, unlettered peasants, and fishermen from northern Galilee.
There were stern Roman soldiers from the barracks of Herod Antipas; others
from Damascus, on their way to measure swords with a lawless Arabian
chieftain. These stood, with sheathed weapons, to listen to one as heroic as
their bravest. There were grasping, avaricious tax-gatherers, from Jericho
and Tiberias, who came, either wearied of their corrupt life, or incited by
the novelty of the occasion, to listen to the scourger of their vices. And,
stranger than all; Jerusalem, from its Sanhedrin, pours forth its
phylacteried representatives--the Pharisee, (the high churchman of his day,)
the stickler for forms and ritual observances, rubric and ceremony, going to
hear this unconsecrated man in an unconsecrated place; the Sadducee, the
cold, scoffing infidel of the age, who looked on the world to come as a
devout myth--forth they go, many of them, perhaps, with a sneer on their
lips; but others also, impelled by a nobler and truer motive--by the
deep-felt needs of their souls. Onward flow these crowds; the diverse
streams all meeting and mingling around this strange, eccentric man. Yes,
and more than all, and what stamps a surpassing interest on the scene, there
is a Divine Personage, then unknown and unrecognized--who has come
also, from far north Galilee, to listen to His great forerunner, and, in
these rapids of the Jordan, to partake of the mysterious baptism.
There must have been a grand, rough eloquence in the
preaching of this child of nature. No labored sentences, no artificial
oratory, no metaphysical distinctions. They were short, abrupt, emphatic,
stirring aphorisms--like the call of the prophet of Nineveh, when he rushed
through that heathen capital, with his one solemn announcement of its
impending doom. Such were John's exhortations. "Repent!"--Soldiers,
Repent!--Publicans, Repent!--Pharisees, and Sadducees,
generation of vipers, Repent! "flee from the wrath to come!" His
illustrations are borrowed from the scenes among which he stood. The masses
of rock that had tumbled from the heights of the gorge were strewed, in wild
confusion, on the banks of Jordan--the river fretting its way between them.
The woodman's axe may have been ringing in the boundless forests around!
"Men of form and routine!" he says, addressing the Pharisee group; "entrench
not yourselves behind these your ancestral and hereditary prerogatives,
apart from holiness of character and life. God is able, if He sees fit, from
these rough stones, these rugged rocks, to raise up children unto Abraham."
"Lose no time, any of you, in listening to my trumpet summons! Let these
forest echoes sound a warning, Behold, now also the axe is laid to the
root of the trees--therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is
hewn down, and cast into the fire," (Matt. 3:10)
Even the locality which this brave preacher of
righteousness selected, had its solemn associations. It could not be very
far from the spot--(perhaps a little higher up the stream)--where the
thousands of Israel had crossed the Jordan when in full flood. If so, this
modern Elijah must have been near also to the place at which his illustrious
predecessor had divided the torrent with his mantle, when on his way to the
solitudes beyond, which were to witness his glorious departure.
This hallowed ground--the great Temple of nature--was a
fit sanctuary surely, for the thunder-voice of the new prophet; its walls,
the precipices of the Jordan--its canopy, the sky--the worshipers, a mingled
congregation of earnest souls--brave men in tears--hard men
softened--careless men arrested--men of business--men of
learning--men of public life--all coming forth to hear a preacher of the
wilderness, a Bedouin of his day--a man with no priestly
consecration--claiming no prophetical succession--his vestments from the
desert--the rough covering of camel's hair--and his watchword the
rallying-cry that brought these many sick hearts around him--"REPENT, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Alas! that so bright a meteor-light should have been so
suddenly quenched in the darkness of death!--that at the age of thirty-four,
weeping mourners should be gathered round his bloody tomb! But he had
accomplished his work. Gloriously and faithfully had he fulfilled his
special mission, and doubtless he now rejoices that he was honored to be the
first to inscribe his name in the yet unwritten page of the gospel book of
martyrs--the "noble army" that were in after ages "to praise God."
Let us gather round the early grave of the Baptist, and
seek to analyze, for our profit and imitation, the leading elements in his
character.
The first element in John's character we may notice, is
his BOLDNESS AND FIDELITY. It was indeed a noble thing to see
a man come forth, with heroic heart, to unmask hypocrisy in all its forms
and phases, and lash unsparingly the conventional follies, and sins, and
vices of the times. We require to put ourselves in the place of his
contemporaries, rightly to estimate his moral courage and fearlessness. It
was no small matter, surely, for a Jew to say boldly to an excited crowd of
Hebrews, that descent from Abraham was nothing; to turn to numbers of
grumbling, mutinous soldiers and say, "Be content with your wages"--to
turn to the fraudulent publicans and say, "Forsake your impious gains, and
be honest men"--no, more--giving forth the unmistakable warning to all, that
if the covenant nation were unfaithful, some other would supersede it; for
out of barren Gentile rocks, God could raise up true "children unto
Abraham."
Nor was his the mere momentary impulsive boldness that
rose suddenly to its climax and then collapsed--sustained by the excitement
of the thousands gathering around him, but which dwindled and dwarfed into
imbecility whenever the tide of popularity and power had turned. He was no
Peter, with brave hero-speeches one day, and coward and craven fears the
next. He was not even like his great but more impetuous prototype--the
reprover of Ahab one day, and the next plunging into the
wilderness--forsaking his post of duty. His dauntlessness is noblest in
adversity.
He who could best read his character, bears emphatic
attestation to his indomitable boldness to the last. When John's disciples,
who still seem to have had access to him in his imprisonment--saw their
noble-hearted master apparently thus hopelessly immured, their courage began
to droop, their faith to stagger. "Could he not have been mistaken, after
all, in the testimony he bore to the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth? If
Jesus were indeed the Christ, why did He not come, in the might of His
divine omnipotence, to the rescue of His innocent forerunner--rending these
cruel bars asunder, and letting the wilderness' voice, so unjustly stifled,
be once more heard?"
John saw their incipient misgivings. Strong in faith
himself, he desires to have their wavering minds confirmed. For this purpose
he selects two of their number, and sends them directly to the Savior, with
the question, "Are you he that should come? or look we for another?"
Christ, in reply, points them to His miracles, enumerating them in detail,
and then adding, "Blessed is he whoever shall not be offended by me."'
And when these messengers have departed, Jesus turns to the multitude
that were present, and delivers to them a very noble vindication of his
servant's character. In most of the utterances of Christ, there is a grand
and serious simplicity--the calm statements of a Being of meek
majesty--who had come "to bear witness to the truth," and scorned any
unnecessary drapery of 'fine language'. But this occasion seems an
exception. In vindicating His beloved friend from any unworthy aspersions,
He rises to fervor--His words glow with a lofty energy, beauty, and power.
Fearful lest the people might have misunderstood and misinterpreted the
motive of John in sending these delegates from prison, He impresses upon
them that it was from no doubt that existed in the mind of the sender, who
had ever been "strong in faith, giving glory to God." "What," says
He, "did you go out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken by the
wind?" Was John's a character whose fitting type was one of those
trembling, shaking, brittle reeds rustling amid the jungles of the Jordan?
Is he likely now to lapse into infidelity--to droop, a withered flower, in
that dungeon--his sun going down gloomily amid clouds of unbelief? No; he is
too much the hero, the true, the brave, for that. His whole life
gives the lie to the insinuation. He will prove no renegade, who had
the boldness, at the opening of his ministry, to denounce Pharisee and
Sadducee--and at the close of it to rebuke the royal adulterer--though in so
doing, he could calculate too well on the penalty he would be called to pay
for his outspoken fidelity.
Would that there were among all of us (and especially
among God's ministers) more of this bold, uncompromising statement of truth!
in rousing from their false dream--like those John addressed--many who are
content to rest in mere outward privileges--as if stated attendance on
ordinances were enough--the skeleton form without the living spirit--church
going and church worship severed from holiness of heart and life.
Evangelical preaching, in these our days, is not only tolerated, but sought,
so long as it adheres to doctrinal statement, and keeps clear of the call to
special duties, or the rebuke of special sins. But we oftentimes need men in
the spirit and power of the Baptist, who have the moral courage to stand up
in the pulpit as the reprovers and denouncers of sins which have become
fashionable--glossed over--palliated--excused--yes, to the reality of which,
through the deadening influence of habit, conscience may have become
insensible.
The Baptist's was no mere indefinite homily about "the
evil of sin" in general. He spoke pointedly and personally, to every class
and every individual, of their dominant passion or lust, whatever it was. He
spoke to the Pharisee of the day of his resting in forms. He spoke to the
soldier of the day of his spirit of insubordination. He spoke to the
publican of the day of his dishonesty and grasping avarice; He spoke to the
court of the day of their dissoluteness, and to the head of that court of
his special sin--"It is not lawful for you to have her." Nor was
there any ambiguity or indefiniteness employed regarding a state of coming
retribution. The solemn reality was not mystified, and explained away, and
blunted by hazy figures of speech--honeyed words. It was no shadowy vision
that dark futurity. He gave things their right names--"Wrath to come."
"The chaff shall be burnt with unquenchable fire!"
Shall we summon in, this great preacher of the olden
time, and imagine what personal sins he would unmask and condemn
among ourselves? Shall we try to imagine how this prophet of the wilderness
would speak, were he either to enter the sacred enclosures of social life,
or stand in the streets of our cities, and, with scrutinizing gaze, mark
their eager crowds hurrying along! What would be the special sin or sins,
his eagle eye would detect, and against which his trumpet tongue would
declaim?
Would it not be our varying phases of intense
worldliness--at one time manifesting itself in public, in the eager,
all-engrossing scramble in the race for riches, as if money were the chief
and only good, the old philosopher's summum bonum (highest good)--as
if gold could dispel care, and solace sorrow, and soothe suffering, and
bribe death? Or, this same master sin, manifesting itself in another form,
in private--the feverish and absorbing money-chase, only exchanged
for an endless, exhausting round of artificial excitements to close the day.
Family duties guiltily curtailed, and in many instances sacrificed, parental
responsibilities neglected--the great "end of being," in this whirlpool of
excitement, often thoroughly ignored--the foot-road to the family altar, or
even to the closet, covered over and hidden with the noxious weeds of
forgetfulness and neglect. What religion remains is shoved into the
Sabbath-corner. Mammon, the most exacting of charioteers, giving his steeds
breath once only in seven days, and, ready, as Monday returns, for the fresh
run of the week!
But mistake us not. Be assured, if John were thus to
speak out his honest convictions, in the midst of us, he would combine
sagacity with boldness. His would be no mystical and unnatural
disseverance of man from his work-day world; as if business and religion
were antagonistic and incompatible. Do you not observe, in the narrative of
Luke, how he enjoins all the classes that came (just as he would enjoin each
class among ourselves) to go back to their ordinary occupations, but
only imbued with a new heaven-born spirit; seeking that religion would
moderate worldly cares, engrossments, employments, and enjoyments, and leave
its sanctifying influence upon all?
To the common people he said--"Go back to the world and
your work, and manifest a spirit of brotherly kindness--'He that has two
coats, let him impart to him that has none; and he that has food, let him do
likewise,'" (Luke 3:11) To the publicans, he did not say--"Leave your
irreligious toll and custom-houses--give up your gains at Tiberias and
Jericho." No! but "Return home! Be tax-gatherers still; but hold the balance
of truth in your hand. Scorn all that is base and dishonest! 'Exact no
more than that which is appointed you,'" (Luke 3:13) To the soldiers, he
did not say--"Leave that horrid trade of war--throw down your
commissions--cast sword and scabbard into the depths of Jordan, and live
lives of hermit seclusion on its banks." No; but--"Go forward in your
present warlike mission against the desert chief of Petra. Be brave, and
good, and true. Temper your heroic deeds with mercy to the vanquished! Set a
noble example of obedience and subordination to your superior officers--Do
violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your
wages," (Luke 3:14)
Yes, here is the honest, outspoken boldness of a man of
God; and yet one who took broad and noble and generous views of existence
and its duties. Would that we thus sought more thoroughly to incorporate
religion with every-day life, and have all interfused with the fear and love
and favor of God. Would that we felt more, that the grand problem which we,
as Christians have to solve, is "to be in the world, and not of
it"--that thousands on thousands in our thoroughfares would listen to
his monitory voice, expressed in the words of a kindred spirit--"Stop loving
this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you
show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world
offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see,
and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from
this evil world. And this world is fading away, along with everything it
craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever." 1 John
2:15-17
A second notable element in the character of John is his
SELF-DENIAL. Weary and sick at heart with the corruptions of the
times, the Baptist, at or before the age of thirty, just at the period of
existence when the world--"the pride of life"--wears most attractions,
retired to the solitude of the desert for meditation and prayer, until "the
time of his showing unto Israel."
We have no reason to suppose that, like his Lord and
master, his early home was one of poverty. His father was a priest; and
alike from the social status of his parents, and from the education he would
receive as a priest's son, we infer he must have occupied no low position in
Hebron, the probable place of his birth and boyhood. But any thoughts
regarding mere earthly well-being and advancement were, in his own mind,
superseded and expelled by a higher principle, and the consciousness of a
nobler mission. He willingly forfeits the prizes which the mere natural man
would have coveted; the pride of family--the love of the world--the
distinctions of learning. Assuming a poor man's garb, he secludes himself
among the Judean mountains and by the shores of the Jordan, that he might
attune and tutor his soul for his appointed work. "What did you go out to
see?" says Christ, in the same impassioned appeal to which we have
already referred. "A man clothed in soft clothing? Behold! those who wear
soft clothing are in kings' palaces." He was no candidate for earthly
honors. The sackcloth and the leathern belt excluded him from court life. If
he had been the devotee of the world or of fashion, he would have clad
himself in different attire. But he was one of these lofty spirits to whom
the world and all its tinsel glitter was nothing--a star dwelling
apart--shining not for itself, but for others--a grand and rare example of
self-sacrifice and self-surrender to God.
Noble pattern, surely, to us in this selfish age and this
selfish world, is this self-denying man! Not that the rough garb and crude
attire--the uncostly and undainty fare and lodging of the desert, are in
themselves either proof of self-denial, or an example for us to follow. Many
a time has a proud, selfish, unloving heart lurked under an affectation,
either in dress, or living, or unworldliness. Christianity is as opposed to
all this morbid and vain singularity, as it is to ostentation and pride. Let
none, therefore, imagine that, for the exercise of John's spirit, it
requires the monkish garb and the hermit's cell--the leathern belt and the
meal of locusts and wild honey. All these are but incidental
accompaniments--no more necessary to self-denial, than standing in the
corners of the streets would be necessary to prayer. They were perhaps
required in John's case, to rouse the slumbering multitudes, and
attract attention to his great theme. If this burning and shining light had
come with the silence and stillness of the dawning day, the benighted world
might have slept on, disregarding his message; and therefore he had to flash
upon it with the glare of the meteor. Moreover, we know, that He who must
ever hold an infinitely higher place than the Baptist, and yet who honored
him and his pure life--He, the infinitely pure and holy ONE--lived no such
hermit existence, and was sustained on no such ascetic fare--"The Son of
man came eating and drinking," and was on that account falsely
stigmatized as "a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber;" and yet, in the case of
both--John, the man of the desert, and Jesus, mingling in social life--there
was the manifestation, though in different phases, of the great principle of
self-denial. The saying was appropriate in the case of either--"He pleased
not himself."
How much room is there, in these our times, for the
exercise of this noble grace! How many there are, who from year's end to
years end--know not what it is to be swayed by its generous impulse--whose
thoughts, feelings, deeds, aspirations, are centered all on self. If
they be happy and prosperous--if their purses be full--if their
business thrive, and their families be well provided for--what do they care
for anything else? The poor are (with them) a sort of myth. They can devour
books describing fictitious sorrows. They can weep over the hard struggle of
poverty pictured in sentimental novels; but as for clothing an orphan, or
helping a struggling widow, or denying themselves some luxury or comfort,
which might easily be spared, that the hungry might be fed or the naked be
clothed--they have never dreamt of that.
If we be Christians indeed, we must manifest more or less
of this spirit of self-denial for the good of others--this abnegation of
self. John by his example, and John's Master, alike by His example and His
words, have left us the sacred command--the solemn legacy--"If any man will
come after me, let him deny himself," (Matt. 16:24). "See that you abound
in THIS grace also--For you know"--(oh! matchless example of
self-denial)--"you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though
he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty
might be rich," (2 Cor. 8:9).
A third element in John's character was his
EARNESTNESS. The phrase is familiar to us all--it has passed into
a proverbial saying--"an earnest ministry." Here was a living
exemplification of it; and its earnestness was the secret of its power. John
(so far as we know) was neither polished, nor learned, nor eloquent. Judging
from the brief recorded specimen of his preaching, he had nothing of the
logical acumen and intellectual grasp of the great scholar of Gamaliel. His
sentences, as we have already said, are strong--pointed--vigorous--the
sharp, arrowy words of a bold, outspoken man--no more.
But--mightier than all eloquence, and than all the logic
and learning of the schools--his winged appeals went forth from his inmost
heart. The words were those of one who deeply felt all he said--whose every
utterance came welling forth from the depths of an earnest soul.
After all, this is what the world, what the
Church, needs--a living earnestness. It is the earnest man who alone
can stand the test, and shall alone be honored in his work. Have we not
manifold instances in proof of this in our own times? Look at those places
where there has been manifested a deep and growing interest in divine
things--and where hundreds, before in a state of utter indifference and
death, have been brought to a knowledge of the truth. What is the
instrumentality that has been employed? Often the very weakest. Ministers of
little intellectual energy--devoid of all the arts of oratory--who can
clothe their utterance only in the simplest and rudest garb--but they are
men in earnest--men who have their work at heart--who go to it in the
spirit of believing prayer--animated by one predominating motive--love for
souls and the glory of God. And where there is this earnestness and
heart-work, it is pleasing to see those of cultivated minds, and who may
even be called fastidious hearers and worshipers, many among them far
superior to their instructors in natural and acquired gifts and knowledge of
life, sitting and listening with docility to the "simplicity of the truth."
It is the old scene witnessed in the Jordan wilderness--those of strong and
vigorous intellect--learned men of the world--polished Pharisees--subtle
Sadducees--soldiers with Roman blood in their veins--officers trained in all
court etiquette--wily, far-seeing tax-gatherers--in one word, hundreds
skilled in the world's logic--shrewd, knowledgeable men of business--coming
and sitting at the feet of this half-savage-looking hermit--a man all
unschooled in worldly art and courtly manners and the business of life--and
asking him, "What shall we do?"
And the same characteristic which gave him access to the
hearts of the people, opened his way to the heart of the Tetrarch. When no
other power could have reached the polluted soul of Herod Antipas, the
earnest truth of the wilderness messenger enabled him to confront, face to
face, the royal debauchee. He honored his earnestness, though he hated his
piety. "Herod heard him gladly." Why? "because he knew that he was
a just man and a holy."
God grant us ever an earnest ministry! It will be
the mighty lever for a revival in its noblest sense. Here is the
grand theme for the prayers of our people, that among ministers and students
there may be the infusion of "the earnest life." It is this alone
which will confound the reasoning and surmises of a semi-infidel world. The
world is keen in perceiving motives--the world is discerning (severely so
sometimes,) in estimating character; and many draw the conclusion, (alas!
too often with good reason!) "These men, preach as they may, are not
in earnest--they are only skillful players on an instrument. These pulpit
orations are shams, ideal pictures, not countersigned by living
earnestness." Hundreds go away from the house of God with the smile
on their face, and Ezekiel's words on their lips, "Ah, Lord God, does he
not speak parables?" (Ezek. 20:49.)
One other trait in John's character was his HUMILITY.
This outshines all the others, and indeed embraces and implies them all. If
ever a man could have risen to power and position by his popularity, it was
the Baptist. The great preacher of the day; the idol of the people; the
first to resume and renew the long-interrupted voice of the old prophets,
"The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts
if John might possibly be the Christ." Others took a more modified view
of his pretensions, but still abundantly flattering, if he had been
susceptible of vain-glory. Yielding to the popular belief current at that
time as to the transmigration of souls, some seemed to conjecture (from dim
and shadowy intimations in the sacred writings) that the soul of Elijah, or
of Jeremiah, may have reappeared in the person of John. "Are you Elijah?
and he said, I am not. Are you that prophet?" (Jeremiah) "and he answered,
No."
How many would have been unduly elated by this formal
mission of delegates sent from the great ecclesiastical council of the
nation to interrogate him as to his claims to the Messiahship--for "the
Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?"
What a grand opportunity was here for an ambitious impostor, or an elated
fanatic! The throne of David might have been, without difficulty, won for
him by these excited crowds; or, at all events, the hermit's brow might have
been encircled by the halo of homage with which they invested the name and
memory of one of their greatest prophets.
But what did this humble man say? He repels and rejects
the offered incense. "I am none of these; I am but the feeble echo of a
Greater far--the pioneer and herald of a Mightier--'the voice of one crying
in the wilderness.' I am not that Light, but am sent to bear witness of that
Light. The latchet of His shoes (the work of the humblest menial) I am not
worthy to stoop down and unloose." And when the brighter Light, the Sun of
Righteousness, had arisen--when Jesus began to baptize in the Jordan,
the disciples of John, in a spirit of unworthy jealousy, came complaining of
the crowds that were deserting John's teaching, and following that of Him
they regarded as a rival "Rabbi," said they, "he that was with you
beyond Jordan, to whom you bore witness," is unfairly superseding you,
"all men come to Him!" John calmly rebukes the unworthy spirit. Under
a beautiful figure, he tells those who he is only "the friend of the
Bridegroom"--not the Bridegroom Himself--that his joy is fulfilled and
complete, by "standing and hearing the Bridegroom's voice"--adding, in a
beautiful spirit of self-renouncing humility, the prophetic words, "He
must increase, but I must decrease."
Ah, how unwilling men generally are, thus to take the
shade and make way for another. How unwilling, especially (as in John's
case) when but in the dawn of aspiring manhood--when their eye is undimmed,
and their natural force unabated--when, with strong arm and vigorous
intellect, they have been swaying the minds of a generation--whether it be
in the councils of the state, or the councils of the church, or in public
citizenship, or even private society--how unwilling all at once to be set
aside and superseded. But so it was with this great and good man. As spring
melts into the tints of full-blown summer--as the morning star melts into
the sky before the brighter radiance of the sun--so this lesser light--the
morning star of the gospel dispensation--after shedding his mellowed
radiance, is content to be "swallowed up in the glory that excels." This is
his comfort under the thought of his extinguished luster, but he needs no
more--"HE must become greater and greater, and I must become less and
less."
Let us close the chapter with one or two PRACTICAL
LESSONS from this review of the character of the Baptist.
1st, Learn from his example, what is THE GREAT THEME
AND OBJECT OF THE MINISTRY. It is the exaltation of Christ! When
men, like the people in John's time, are "thinking in their hearts"--when
the soul is open to conviction, sighing to have its great unsated longings
met--with what are we to fill that heart, and meet these aspirations? It is
not by discourses on philosophy--or by homilies on virtue--but by telling of
ONE mightier, who "baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Let
the faithful servants of a 'Greater than John' have one ambition, one cause
of joy--that Christ their Lord be exalted. Let them take as their motto and
watchword the ever-memorable words with which the Baptist pointed his
disciples to the great Being approaching them--"BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD!"--words
probably suggested by the scene and circumstances of the spot--the sheep and
lambs passing by the fords of the Jordan to the impending passover. As such,
the reference is interesting and impressive. "Look no longer," says John, at
these bleating types--look no longer on ME. I am myself, like these
dumb animals, only appointed to prepare the world for a grander Advent. That
advent so fondly waited for is now accomplished. The types may now vanish
away. These flocks need no more be driven to the city of solemnities. See
Him to whom they have for four thousand years pointed--"Behold the Lamb
of God, that takes away the sin of the world!"
Learn, 2d, That GOD'S SERVANTS MUST NOT ALWAYS LOOK
FOR THEIR REWARD IN THIS WORLD. The faith of many would have sunk
altogether under the successive reverses experienced by the Baptist--the
decline of his popularity, his own disciples and followers grieving his
spirit by the manifestation of base feelings of envy and jealousy--and,
worse than all, his own brave spirit, burning eager as ever, with desire to
glorify his great Lord, chafed and buffeted by the tyrant of Galilee; he
himself cast, at the age of thirty-four, into a dungeon, and made the victim
of bloodthirsty revenge--the morning star not only quenched by the sun and
hidden from view, but blotted out altogether from the earthly skies!
Let God's servants learn from this, not to be dependent
either on the praise or censure of man, or to look for earthly recompense.
Let them seek to have their record on high--to have their own motives lofty
and pure, so that they may be able to say, in the spirit of the great
apostle, "It is a small thing for me to be judged by you or by man's
judgment." When their influence is on the wane, be this their comfort,
that "their decrease is not Christ's decrease"--that His great cause
is not jeopardized by wayward human feeling and caprice. The meteor may
flash its little moment and then die; but the bright and morning Star is a
fixed orb, shining far above in changeless and undying glory.
Let us learn, 3d, That CHRIST'S SERVANTS, OFTEN
UNRECOMPENSED BY MEN, ARE NOT FORGOTTEN BY THEIR GREAT MASTER.
It was when that lonely captive was in his prison among
the mountains, near the shores of the Dead Sea, that his Lord uttered that
beautiful and touching eulogy on his character to which we have more than
once adverted. John might have appeared to men, at that time, a brittle,
broken reed; but the lips of infallible truth said of him, "He is a
prophet, yes, I say unto you, and more than a prophet." The humble,
lowly-minded man may have thought that not only his work was closed, but his
influence gone. But hear, from the lips of his great Lord, how he truly
lived. How his saintly life was pointed to, for the example and
encouragement of the people of Israel; yes, and when he died, how
that heart of more than human love sought "a solitary place," that He might
mourn the bright and shining Light which had been so early extinguished!
May we not further add that, on that coming day, when all
the inequalities in providence shall be adjusted, and all mysteries
explained and vindicated, these same lips of infinite truth and love will be
ready with the verdict, "Well done, good and faithful servant;" "you have
been faithful unto DEATH, I will give you a crown of life."
From all this, let the lowliest, and humblest, and most
despised believer take comfort. Unknown and unacknowledged by men, they are
not forgotten by Jesus! A sick-bed, a home of sorrow, a season of
bereavement or temporal loss--any one of these, may be to you like the
prison of John--the confine where you are shut up--with pining heart--some
sea of death rolling its gloomy waves around you.
Be comforted! Christ is thinking upon you. Glorify Him by
passive suffering and endurance, if unable to do it by active labor.
"God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love," (Heb.
6:10). He will be with you, as with John, in life--appointing all its
circumstances and "accidents." He will be with you in your hour of
trouble--His loving eye will never more lovingly focus on you, than when
your soul is "in prison," and the chains of adversity are around you. As He
spoke to the multitude in vindication of His captive servant, though at a
distance from his place of imprisonment, so will He speak for you,
and plead for you, now that He is on His distant throne in the skies!
And when you come to die--though He is no longer visibly present, as He was
on earth, to stand by your grave--yet He marks the going down of every sun,
He appoints the hour of its setting, and "precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of His saints," (Ps. 116:15).
And if we would gather yet one other lesson from the tomb
of this great and good prophet, it is by pointing to the example of those
who bore him to his last resting-place, indicating, as it did, the true
refuge and solace of every afflicted one in their season of BEREAVEMENT.
The burial scene is over; the body has been transferred to its rocky vault;
the tearful lament has died into solemn silence; the stone is rolled to the
mouth of the cave; and the mourners, with drooping hearts, are wending their
way along from the hallowed spot. But where? "The disciples took up the
body and buried it; and THEY WENT AND TOLD JESUS!"
Oh, blessed resort in the hour of deepest affliction! Go,
child of sadness and desolation; go, with your breaking heart, with your
aching life-sorrow, too great for utterance or for tears--"Go and tell
Jesus!" Others may give you a false panacea for your grief--others may
counsel you to go and bury your woes in the grave--to stifle your tears--to
put on counterfeit smiles, to hide the yawning chasm in your heart of
hearts--others may tell you to go and feed your grief--to sit in your silent
chamber, and mope and pine over your blighted happiness in morbid and
unavailing sadness. But let these mourners over their "loved and lost,"
teach you a nobler philosophy, and dictate a surer ground of comfort and
solace and strength. Go, and though all others should be cold and unpitying
and unsympathizing, there is One ear, at least, that is lovingly open
to the story of your tears--remembering that Friend in heaven--"GO AND TELL
JESUS."