The look of our Lord.
"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter." What was there then, and what is there now, in the glance of Jesus Christ?
I. HIS LOOK OF PENETRATION. We read of one of the earliest disciples being convinced by our Lord's discernment of him under the thick foliage of the fig tree; he was then told to look for greater things than that (John 1:50). And surely one of those greater things was found in that penetration which saw through the thicker covering of the human flesh and of human speech and demeanour to the very thought of the mind, to the very desire of the heart, to the inmost secrets of the soul. He knew what was in man. It was his knowledge of men that directed him in his varying treatment of them; it is his penetrating insight into men now that determines his dealing with us all.
II. HIS LOOK OF COMPASSION. What did the sick and the suffering, the fevered and the paralyzed and the leprous, the men and women who had left afflicted ones behind them at their homes—what depths of tender compassion did these sons and daughters of Israel see in the eyes of Jesus Christ? And what inexhaustible fullness of pity, what unbounded sympathy, may not the stricken and the sorrowing souls who are badly bruised and wounded on life's highway still find in "the face of Jesus Christ"!
III. HIS LOOK OF SAD REPROACH. Sometimes there was that in the glance of Jesus Christ from which the guilty shrank. When "he looked round about on them with anger," we may be sure that his baffled enemies quailed before his glance. And when "the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter," what keen sorrowful reproach was then apparent in the face of Jesus Christ! how that look gathered up all possible words and tones of solemn expostulation, of sad disappointment, of bitter sorrow! It was a look which wrought great things in the apostle's soul, the remembrance of which, we may be sure, he carried with him to the end. Christ has all too many occasions now to turn toward us that reproachful glance.
1. When we fail to keep the promises we made him at the time of our self-surrender.
2. When we fail to pay the vows we made him in some hour of discipline.
3. When we fall seriously short of the allegiance which all his disciples owe to him—in reverence, in obedience, in submission. Let us, who are professing to follow him, ask ourselves what we should see in his countenance if we stood face to face with him to-day. Would it be the benign look of Divine commendation? or would it be the pained look of sorrowful reproach? To those who are inquiring their way to life it is a source of blessed encouragement that they will see, if they regard their Lord—
IV. HIS LOOK OF TENDER INTEREST. When the rich young man came and made his earnest inquiry of the great Teacher, he was not yet in the kingdom, and was not yet fully prepared to enter it; but he was a sincere and earnest seeker after God, and "Jesus, beholding him, loved him" (Mark 10:21). With such tender regard, with such loving interest, does he look down on every true suppliant who looks up to him with the vital question on his lips, "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"—C.
The patience of Christ.
In these touching words, which we cannot read without a sentiment of shame as members of the human race, we have—
I. A PICTURE OF SUPREME ENDURANCE. How much our Lord was called upon to endure, we shall be best able to realize when we consider:
1. The greatness of which he was conscious (see Luke 22:70). He knew and felt that he had a right to the most reverent homage of the best and highest, and was thus treated by the worst and lowest.
2. The power which he knew he wielded: with what perfect ease could he have extricated himself from these cruel insults!
3. The character of the men who were maltreating him—the lowest amongst the low.
4. The nature of the indignities to which they subjected him; these went from bad to worse—from binding him to beating him, from beating him to spitting upon him, from this most shameful indignity to the yet more cruel sneer at his holy mission," Prophesy unto us," etc. They vented upon him the very last extremes of human contumely and shame.
II. A PICTURE OF SUBLIME PATIENCE. He bore it all with perfect calmness. Here shone forth in its full lustre "the meekness of Jesus Christ." "When he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not;" "As a sheep before her shearers," etc. And wherein shall we find the source and explanation of this sublime patience?
1. He was bent on bearing, to the full and to the end, his Father's will.
2. He was determined to complete the work he had undertaken, and of that work those sufferings were a part. He was then "wounded for our trangressions," then he was "bruised for our iniquities," and by those "stripes were we healed."
APPLICATION.
1. Like our Divine Master, we ore called upon to endure. In doing those things we believe to be right of which others do not feel the obligation, also in abstaining from those things we feel to be wrong, which other people allow, we come into conflict, we excite displeasure, we incur odium, we suffer censure, opposition, ridicule; we "bear his reproach." Thorough loyalty to our Lord and to our own convictions means exposure to the assaults and indignities of the world.
2. We have the highest incentives to endure.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR