The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

But though this was so, they had no dread of speaking to Him about common earthly necessities. They knew that He had sat down weary on the well; they knew that He hungered and thirsted. He had sent them to buy food, and they could say, 'Master, eat,' without any doubt that He would partake of it just as any of them did. Probably He took what they offered Him, even while He said, 'I have meat to eat which ye know not of.' They had so little suspicion that He would ever work a miracle for His own support,—they were so inwardly certain that He would not,—that they said at once to each other, 'Hath any man brought Him ought to eat?' No. He had waited for their coming. The ravens had carried no nourishment to Him; He had not commanded the stones to become bread. There must have been a special joy, an unwonted radiance in His face as He answered, 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.' He had that spring of life within Him, of which He had spoken to the woman, from which life might flow forth to her and to all. And yet He speaks of it as not an original fountain, even in Him. There was One from whom He was sent. The satisfaction of doing His will, of accomplishing his purpose,—this was His food; this was the sustaining principle within Him. St. John has taught us already, and will teach us more completely hereafter, that the relation of the Son to a Father, with all the trust, obedience, communion which it implies, is the subject of the new revelation. To be doing the will of Him that sent Him, to be in perfect sympathy with the will which is at the root of the universe, to be fulfilling the purposes of this will,—this Christ affirms to be meat to Him in a double sense; meat, as that which keeps up the strength of the man—meat, as that which gratifies and satisfies his desires.

One may feel there is great general force in such a sentiment as this; but what is its special application to the story we are reading? Had His interview with the woman supplied Him with what could be called meat in either of these senses? What was there to sustain Him, what was there to delight Him, in her way of receiving His words?

The answer is given in the following passage: 'Say ye not, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already unto the harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.'

Many who have gathered crowds about them, who have produced a marked impression upon those crowds, have said, and said truly, that such success was meat and drink to them. If it did not feed their vanity, but sustained them because it showed them they were doing God's will and finishing His work, they may have understood something of Christ's meaning. But the secret food He partook of certainly came from no sudden success that followed His words. First, He met with a woman who had in general answered Him with levity; then a few people of her own rank came at her call. How little would such honours satisfy the ambition of some eloquent disciple of Christ, who has the power of influencing thousands! Could it satisfy Him who came to found a kingdom of which there was to be no end? Yes; for in these first sheaves He could see the certain pledges of a nation's, of a world's, ingathering. The corn-fields which the disciples saw about them would not be reaped for four months; yet the harvest would appear, because the seed had been sown. These men whom He saw coming showed Him that the other harvest was nearer still. The fields were white already for that harvest; the disciples themselves would be reapers in it. He had sent them, and they would receive the wages of reapers. What wages? He had already told them that His own wages were to do the will of God, and to finish His work. Did they want better? They would gather in fruit,—the fruit of all His work and travail, of all God's revelations of Himself from age to age, of all the toil of patriarchs, kings, prophets. These had laboured,—they were entering into their labours. They were come in at the end of a period when all things were hastening to their consummation. They would have the reward which all these men had longed for,—the reward of seeing God's full revelation of Himself, of opening the spring of eternal life of which all might drink together. The divisions of time had nothing to do with an eternal blessing. The sower and the reaper would rejoice together. Why might not Jacob, who had given the well, and the newest Samaritan convert who drank of it, share in those pleasures which are at the right hand of Him, who is, and was, and is to come?

I have only given you a hint or two which may assist you in tracing out the sense of these great words. The Apostles did not enter into them for many years,—not till they had begun to reap the harvest of which He spoke, not till they had learnt that some of the wages of the reapers were persecution and disappointment. So they understood by degrees how unsatisfactory all promises were but those which He had given them; how miserable a thing it was to hope for any reward but that which had been and is His reward. I suppose we must be trained to understand Christ's doctrine in the same school. Till we have been under His discipline we shall have the temper of hirelings, counting His work a hardship, expecting to be paid hereafter for consenting to do it. Or else we shall look for instant harvests,—for mighty effects to follow at once from the things that we speak,—for those fruits which least manifest the calm, patient, loving will of God, and therefore bring no true and inward satisfaction to the spirit of a man. We must learn to see in the seed that same eternal life which is in the perfect flower and fruit—to believe that God will bring the one out of the other; otherwise we shall have much excitement and much weariness, but no food which can support us, no joy which will connect us with the ages that are past and the ages to come. That will not be given to us till we see, in God's revelation of Himself to one sinner, the token of His love to the world.

The whole doctrine concerning the rewards for obedience, which has been the subject of so many wearisome folios by philosophers and divines, is contained, I think, in these eight verses, and may be drawn out of them for daily use by any who think that the Apostle has a higher wisdom than can be found in his commentators, or in their own speculations. The remainder of the chapter contains, in a form as simple and as available, the solution of another problem which has exercised the wits of schoolmen and the hearts of wayfarers. Who has not been tormented with questions and answers about the nature, conditions, kinds, of belief,—about the force of testimony which produces it,—about the organ which exercises it,—about the security or the insecurity of the person who has it or who wants it? On all these points St. John gives us no dissertations. But he tells us a short story about certain Samaritans, and then another rather longer story about a certain Galilæan, which I think may supply the place of many dissertations.

The first is contained in these verses: 'And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto Him, they besought Him that He would tarry with them: and He abode there two days. And many more believed because of His own word, and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'

Suppose this was translated into school phraseology about implicit and explicit faith,—suppose each of these terms was laboriously explained,—all the different opinions of Fathers, Mediæval Doctors, Reforming Doctors, Modern Doctors respecting each compared, weighed, adjusted,—how much learning we should possess! how much the Apostle's doctrine would expand in our hands,—how much we should expand in our own estimation! But supposing we had actually to find out what belief is in our own case, to trace the history of its progress, how thankful we should be to any one who would translate back the learned language into the language of the Gospel, who would let us hear what these Samaritans—vulgar people of our own flesh and blood—said about their belief and its growth!

The first stage of it we have considered already. What the woman told them had a great effect upon their minds, because she spake of what she knew, and not of what she did not know. If she had said, 'He explained the prophecies to me,'—who would have cared? What judge was she of the prophecies, and what judges would they be? If she had said, 'He wrought a miracle in my sight,'—there had been enchanters enough among them, who had imposed upon much wiser people than she was. Her fellow-citizens, if they were not very curious, would not have deserted their common business for such an announcement as that. But, 'He told me all that ever I did;' then she spoke from her experience. Whether she were wise or silly, a good woman or a bad, that was worth listening to; there were signs of truth about that.

They came and heard Him themselves. And then He told each of them what he had done, showed him to himself, made him feel that he was in the presence of a Light. The Light entered into the separate hearts, and showed them their dark passages. And yet it was a common Light; it gave them a sense of fellowship they had never had before; it gave them a sense of being men, which they had never had before. And, moreover, it was a Light which scattered confusions, ignorances, falsehoods, that had been dwelling undisturbed within them, or that had only been disturbed by what they felt must have been a ray of this same Light. And therefore, without asking the opinion of any wise man whatsoever, these bold peasants said out frankly and broadly, 'We have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'