IV
THE THIRD WORD
“Lady, behold thy son.”
“Behold thy mother.”St. John xix. 26, 27.
In this Word we see the Son of God revealed as human son, and human friend, all the more truly and genuinely human in both relations, because in each and every relation of life, Divine.
1. The first lesson in the Divine Life for us to learn here is the simple, almost vulgarly commonplace one, yet so greatly needing to be learnt, that “charity,” which is but a synonym of the Divine Life, “begins at home.”
Home life is the real test of a person’s Christianity. There the barriers with which society elsewhere hedges round and cramps the free expression of our individuality, no longer exist. We are at liberty to be ourselves. What sort of use do we make of it? What manner of self do we disclose? Would our best friends recognise that self to be the person whom they admire? If we are to be Christians at all, we must begin by being Christians at home.
At home, and beyond the limits of home, one great Christian virtue stands out as the supreme law of social behaviour—that is, for a disciple—the virtue of consideration for others.
In the midst of torturing physical pain, in the extreme form of that experience, of which the slightest degree makes us fretful, irritable, self-absorbed, our Lord calmly provides for the future of His mother and the disciple whom He loved.
What is required of us is not high-flown sentiment, but the practical proof of consideration, that we have really learnt the first lesson of the Christ-life, to put others, not self, in the first place. The proof, the test, is our willingness to put ourselves to inconvenience, to go without things, for the sake of others. If in such a little matter as so ordering our Sunday meals as to give our servants rest, as far as may be, and opportunity for worship, our practical, home Christianity breaks down, then we must not shirk the plain truth, there is in us nothing of the Spirit of Him Who spoke the Third Word. On the other hand, the readiness with which we do yield up our comforts is a proof—nothing short of that—a proof of the indwelling of God in us. “In this we know that He abideth in us, from the Spirit”—the Spirit of the Christ—“which He hath given to us.”
2. We notice, in the second place, that Christ’s proof of friendship is the assignment of a task, the giving of some work to do for Him. “Behold thy
mother.” We are His friends, as He Himself has told us. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave is one who knows not what his master is doing; but you I have called friends.” St. John had forsaken his Friend: