Personal Friendships of Jesus

by J. R. Miller

The lesson is, that however heavy our burdens may be, however hurried or pressed we may be, we should always keep the peace of Christ in our heart. This is one of the problems of Christian living,—not to live without cares, which is impossible, but to keep quiet and sweet in the midst of the most cumbering care.

At the second mention of the Bethany home there is sore distress in it. A beloved one is very sick, sick unto death. Few homes are entire strangers to the experience of those days when the sufferer lay in the burning fever. Love ministered and prayed and waited. Jesus was far away, but word was sent to him. He came at length, but seemed to have come too late. "If thou hadst been here!" the sisters said, each separately, when they met the Master. But we see now the finished providence, not the mere fragment of it which the sisters saw; and we know he came at the right time. He comforted the mourners, and then he blotted out the sorrow, bringing back joy to the home.[1]

The third picture of this home shows us a festal scene. A dinner was given in honor of Jesus. It was only a few days before his death. Here, again, the sisters appear, each true to her own character. Martha is serving, as she always is; and again Mary is at Jesus' feet. This time she is showing her wonderful love for the friend who has done so much for her. The ointment she pours upon him is an emblem of her heart's pure affection.

Mary's act was very beautiful. Love was the motive. Without love no service, however great or costly, is of any value in heaven's sight. The world may applaud, but angels turn away with indifference when love is lacking. "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor … but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." But love makes the smallest deed radiant as angel ministry. We need not try doing things for Christ until we love him. It would be like putting rootless rods in a garden-bed, expecting them to grow into blossoming plants. Love must be the root. It was easy for Mary to bring her alabaster box, for her heart was full of overmastering love.

Service is the fruit of love. It is not all of its fruit. Character is part too. If we love Christ, we will have Christ's beauty in our soul. Mary grew wondrously gentle and lovely as Christ's words entered her heart. Friendship with Christ makes us like Christ. But there will be service too. Love is like light, it cannot be hid. It cannot be shut up in the heart. It will not be imprisoned and restrained. It will live and speak and act. Love in the heart of Jesus brought him from heaven down to earth to be the lost world's Redeemer. Love in his apostles took them to the ends of the earth to tell the gospel story to the perishing.

It is not enough to try to hew and fashion a character into the beauty of holiness, until every feature of the image of Christ shines in the life, as the sculptor shapes the marble into the form of his vision. The most radiant spiritual beauty does not make one a complete Christian. It takes service to fill up the measure of the stature of Christ. The young man said he had kept all the commandments from his youth. "One thing thou lackest," said the Master; "sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor." Service of love was needed to make that morally exemplary life complete.

The lesson is needed by many Christian people. They are good, with blameless life, flawless character, consistent conduct; but they lack one thing,—service. Love for Christ should always serve. There is a story of a friar who was eager to win the favor of God, and set to work to illuminate the pages of the Apocalypse, after the custom of his time. He became so absorbed in his delightful occupation that he neglected the poor and the sick who were suffering and dying in the plague. He came at last, in the course of his work, to the painting of the face of his Lord in the glory of his second coming; but his hand had lost its skill. He wondered why it was, and realized that it was because, in his eagerness to paint his pictures, he had neglected his duty of serving.

Rebuffed and humiliated by the discovery, the friar drew his cowl over his head, laid aside his brushes, and went down among the sick and dying to minister to their needs. He wrought on, untiringly, until he himself was smitten with the fatal plague. Then he tottered back to his cell and to his easel, to finish his loved work before he died. He knelt in prayer to ask help, when, lo! he saw that an angel's hand had completed the picture of the glorified Lord, and in a manner far surpassing human skill.

It is only a legend, but its lesson is well worthy our serious thought. Too many people in their life as Christians, while they strive to excel in character, in conduct, and in the beautiful graces of disposition, and to do their work among men faithfully, are forgetting meanwhile the law of love which bids every follower of Christ go about doing good as the Master did. To be a Christian is far more than to be honest, truthful, sober, industrious, and decorous; it is also to be a cross-bearer after Jesus; to love men, and to serve them. Ofttimes it is to leave your fine room, your favorite work, your delightful companionship, your pet self-indulgence, and to go out among the needy, the suffering, the sinning, to try to do them good. The monk could not paint the face of the Lord while he was neglecting those who needed his ministrations and went unhelped because he came not. Nor can any Christian paint the face of the Master in its full beauty on his soul while he is neglecting any service of love.

We may follow a little the story of what happened after Mary brought her alabaster box. Some of the disciples of Jesus were angry. There always are some who find fault with the way other people show their love for Christ. It is so even in Christian churches. One member criticises what another does, or the way he does it. It will be remembered that it was Judas who began this blaming of Mary. He said the ointment would better have been sold, and the proceeds given to the poor. St. John tells us very sadly the real motive of this pious complaining; not that Judas cared for the poor, but that he was a thief, and purloined the money given for the poor.