What were the salient features of Jesus' message and ministry which found such a welcome acceptance in the hearts of plain, ordinary men and women? What were those truths so simple that the ignorant and uncultured could understand them, yet so potent that once they began to ferment their possessors became known as men who had turned the world upside down? I think we can put them down under two heads which will include the heart of the matter.
The first is simply that this is God's world in which we are living. That sounds like the barest sort of platitude, but have patience. There is more in it than appears at first glance.
Certainly it is the basis of Jesus' message. From His references to the lilies on the Galilean hillsides and the sparrows on the housetops to His discussion of the whole range of human affairs, Jesus was at pains to point out that there was no detail which was outside of God's care and concern. The assurance of St. Paul that all things work together for good to them that love God is the emphasis on such a characterization of the world as finds its culmination in Jesus' confident assertion, "Ye therefore shall be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." It is a world in which men can live up to their best.
Did you ever think what a terrible irony it would have been if Jesus had said that just to encourage us, knowing that it could never be true? We are tolerant of the unconscious cruelty of the small boy who teases a dog by holding a bone just out of his reach, encouraging him to jump for it, because we know that he will finally give it to him. It is unthinkable that Jesus could have used words of such deep significance in such a cruelly careless way. It is God's universe in which moral purpose has a definite standing and a more than ordinary strength.
Professor Rauschenbusch has said it in these words: "If love is the fundamental quality of God, it must be part of the constitution of humanity." The simple-hearted have in all ages sensed the import of this truth, for it has to them opened up great vistas of the possibilities of life, possibilities contemptuously discredited by the wise men of their time who base their calculations on human weakness rather than on human potentiality.
Your realist prides himself upon keeping his feet upon the ground. He will go no farther than he can see, and he sees truly enough the evil and imperfection in the world. He notes the weakness and failures of the best intentioned, takes cognizance of the low motives that so often dominate, and bases his conclusions on them. He spurns the idealistic twaddle of those who, he says, are guided by their hopes rather than by ordinary good sense, and fancies himself a practical man. He expects little and gets that.
The Christian realist, however, sees the possibilities in the evil and weak of mankind. He recognizes elements of virtue and courage and honor that are waiting to be called out, sets himself to elicit them and bases his conclusions on those very real facts. He is just as practical as the other, but with this difference—he expects more and gets it.
When Jesus called the impulsive, eager Simon a rock, the hard-headed must have smiled and later remarked, "I told you so," when Peter broke under his first test; but Jesus' judgment was the truer after all. So with Mary Magdalene and Zacheus, Jesus saw in them what they might be and demonstrated that this is a world where the best has a chance. "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp," is Browning's rebuke to the merely prudent.
Have you noted how Jesus drove home His point that the possibilities for good in the world and in men and women were of supreme importance? He was not content to leave it as a general proposition. By parable and precept again and again He made it clear, not merely that the possibilities were here, but that they were God's major interest. By them we are judged.
The practical men who knew that the temple bills had to be paid knew that money was money, but Jesus rated the widow's tiny offering above them all. The one wandering sheep was more precious than the ninety-nine. The perfect young man who had kept all the commandments, no doubt the joy of his mother and the pride of his community, and also the substantial pillar of the church who had done everything that was required, were not to be compared with the social outcast who had failed but had the grace to admit it. There was hope for him.