“‘Where wast thou, little song,
That hast delayed so long
To come to me?’
‘Mute in the mind of God
Till where thy feet had trod
I followed thee.’”
It is only where we have gone that we know the way; it is only the experience in life that we have passed through that gives us our true knowledge of life, because the end of life is its relationships, and wealth of life depends on the breadth of true knowledge and the riches of true relationship. Smoothness of life is simply deadening because it keeps us out of what is real life.
And Christianity derided smoothness of life, and scorned it, because it separates us from fellowship with the noble and suffering life of God. You know the long controversy in theology as to whether the idea of suffering is compatible with the idea of a perfect God. There have been some theologians who insist it could not be possible that God should suffer. If He could suffer, He could not be God. Well, I suppose all of us here are prepared without one moment of hesitation to range ourselves on the other side, and to say that if God cannot suffer He cannot be our God. He could not be a father if He did not suffer. Christ could not have been the revelation of Him if He is not a suffering God; for “He was the man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” What He laid bare was a heart of love sharing the anguish of others; for we have not a Father who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,—We can say that of Him because of what we know of Him who revealed Him,—We have not a Father who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, no impassive God sitting where “no sound of human sorrow mounts to mar His sacred everlasting calm,” but a Father who pities His children, who enters into their life, and who loves them with all His soul. We can have no knowledge of that God, no fellowship with His life, if what we are living is the smooth, easy, indulgent life, everything bought for us by others, nothing done by us for others, no blood of sacrifice colouring our life red with the glow of God and His incarnate Son. The New Testament despises the smooth life that makes it impossible for men and women to have any part in the deepest life of their Father.
And the New Testament scorns the smooth, indulgent life because it cannot connect men and women with the real springs of strength and of power. No strong man was ever made against no resistance. We develop no physical power by putting forth no physical effort. All the strength of life we have we get by pushing against opposition. We acquire power as we draw it out of deep experience and effort. And the new Christian ideal made no place for indulgence and ease because these things leave men and women weak, with no strength either themselves to bear or to achieve for others. It is as Mrs. King puts it in Ugo Bassi’s “Sermon in the Hospital”:
“The Vine from every living limb bleeds wine;