Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

ON the evening before He died, Jesus washed the disciples' feet. This touching action of our Lord is constantly taken and turned into a picture of spiritual truths, and it is a very fair use to make of the story. No wonder if there is ever an overflowing surplus of meaning in all the things that Jesus said and did. But we must not forget that their symbolic use is a matter of secondary moment, and we must take care, first and chiefly, to recognise in our Lord's words and deeds that simple, direct meaning which He intended them to have. In the present case He has Himself told us why He did this strange and beautiful act of self-abasement to His faulty followers, and what effect the memory of His great humility ought to have on our hearts and characters, if we would be like Him, divinely wise and good in our treatment of erring friends.

In the country where Jesus lived the roads were hot and dusty, and the people wore sandals that left the upper part of the foot exposed. In the course of even a short journey the skin became covered with an irritating kind of sand. Therefore, on the arrival of a visitor, it was the first duty of hospitality to offer water to wash and cool the weary feet. When a feast was made the guests, as they entered, would lay aside their sandals, and take their places on the couches that surrounded the table. Then the humblest servant of the house was wont to come with basin, towel, and pitcher of water, to kneel behind each couch, to pour the water over the projecting feet, to wash them clean and free from stain, and to wipe them gently dry. It was a comfortable and kindly custom, and we know, from the anecdote of Simon the Pharisee, that our Lord missed it when it was omitted, and gratefully welcomed it when it was observed.

This night Jesus and His disciples are gathered for supper in the upper room of a strange house in Jerusalem. The room has been lent for the occasion, and so there is no servant in attendance on them. In such circumstances it had been customary among the little company for one of their number, ere the meal began, to do this needful service for the rest. In a corner of the room stood the pitcher and basin, with the towel folded by their side. They had all taken their places round the table, and the time to commence supper had come (so read verse 2). But this night—the last of their Master's life on earth—none rose to wash their feet, none stirred to perform that friendly office. One and all, they kept their places in painful and embarrassed silence. Their refusal of the lowly but accustomed task was due to an unwonted access of pride and self-assertion in their hearts. That very day, in the way, there had been a fierce contention among the disciples as to which of them was greatest. The dispute reached the Master's ear, and he firmly rebuked their rivalry and quelled the quarrel. The storm of passion was silenced on their lips, but the sullen surge of anger had not quite died out of their hearts. Not yet would it be easy for any one of them to forget his dignity, and do a humbling service to the rest. And so it came to pass on that solemn evening, when their Master's heart was so soft and tender, their hearts were hard with pride and anger, and though they felt the painfulness of the pause and the wrongfulness of their obstinacy, not one of them had the manliness to rise and end it, and by humbling himself make peace and harmony in their hearts.

The consciousness of discord entered the holy heart of Jesus and pierced it. His soul was filled that night with love unspeakable, and He longed to pour out to His friends the joy and the pain of His mighty purpose. But that could not be while their breasts were possessed by petty rivalries, and mean thoughts, and angry feelings. He must first shame away their pride, and melt their hardness, and make them gentle, lowly, and loving. How can He do this most quickly and completely? "He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded." Who is not able to picture the scene—the faces of John, and James, and Peter; the intense silence, in which each movement of Jesus was painfully audible; the furtive watching of Him, as He rose, to see what He would do; the sudden pang of self-reproach as they perceived what it meant; the bitter humiliation and the burning shame! The way John recites each detail tells how that scene had scorched itself on his soul and become an indelible memory. Truly his Master had "given him an example." To his dying day John could see that sight, and many a time in the hour of temptation it crossed his path and made him a better man. May that same vision of our Lord's great humility rise before our eyes, when life is full of pride and rivalry, and our hearts are hot and angry; and may its sweet influence come on our spirits like cool, pure water, to wash these evil passions out, and to make us good and gentle, like Jesus!

II.

Read Job xvi., and Matt. xxvi. 31-46.
The Unsympathetic.—John xiii. 1-3.

The preface to the narrative of the feet-washing is long and involved. The ideas move in a lofty sphere, seemingly very remote from the simple scene they prelude. At first sight the reader is tempted to count the introduction cumbrous, and to question the relevancy. A more profound appreciation of its contents and connection changes questioning into admiration, and transforms perplexity into wondering delight. We perceive how the thoughts of the prelude light up the whole scene with a golden glow of human tenderness and Divine grandeur, so that, like a picture set in its true light, we now discern in it a depth of meaning and a wealth of beauty previously unsuspected. The perplexing preface proves to be the vestibule that leads into the innermost shrine of the temple.

The Gospel of St. John was not written till half a century later than the events it records; yet it is written as though it were but yesterday the Apostle had witnessed the scenes he describes. Those recollections had not been casual visitants, but constant inmates of his mind and heart. There was hardly ever a day he had not thought about them. At night when he lay awake and could not sleep he had thought about them. He conned them over in memory, he pored over them in his mind, he cherished them in his heart lovingly. And the promise his Lord had given came true to him, for the Holy Spirit took of these things of Christ, and showed them unto him, so that they grew to his eyes better and better, and more beautiful, and more full of meaning, till their inmost heart of Divine goodness was revealed to him. Ah! when we first get to know Christ it is but His face, His eyes, His outer form we see. That is a great sight! But to see and know all the heart of God that was in Him—that takes a very long time; it takes half a century; it takes eternity to get at that! John lived in that high quest almost all his life, gazing at the Master, worshipping and adoring, laying his heart on the Master's heart; and the result was that he got to know Jesus far better than he did when he lived with Him. Hence it is that the fourth Gospel is so different from the other three. They just tell us what Jesus said and what Jesus did. But John's Gospel mixes up the acts and words of Jesus with John's own thoughts and explanations, so that it is sometimes hardly possible to tell whether we are reading what Jesus said or what John thought about it. He is ever passing behind the loveliness of the human life, to trace its explanation in the inner heavenly nature. He paints for us the tree with its beauteous branches, leaves, and blossoms, and then he bids us behold the great root in God's earth out of which it grew; that wonderful root, which is Divine, and which is the source of all the sweetness that is brightening the upper air. The Jesus of John's Gospel has more of God in the look of face and eyes, and in the ring of His voice, than the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is the Jesus that lived and grew on in John's loving memory, year by year becoming greater, holier, Diviner in the illumination of the Holy Spirit, that was brooding over that home of Christ in the heart of John. It is, indeed, Jesus coloured by John's thoughts and John's feelings; but then they are true thoughts and true feelings. And so it is that sometimes, in the evangel of the Beloved Disciple, we almost lose sight of the outer form and familiar features of our Lord, but only that we may see more clearly the glory of His inner nature and the beauty of His heart Divine.

It is to this loving industry of John's mind that we owe the preface of our story, so laden with great thoughts. It bids us, before we scan the picture of our Lord's humility, gaze into His heart, and see how that night it was filled with contending emotions of exaltation and agony, of tenderest devotion and unrequited love, and then, in the light of His inner grandeur, grief, and forlornness, measure the marvel of this wondrous act of self-abasement. He who washed the feet of those sinful men was the Son of God and the world's Saviour. He made Himself their servant! He washed their feet! But more than that, He was a dying man that night, and He knew it. His hour was come. Already the presaging pangs of the bloody sweat, of the scourging and the spitting, of the anguish and forsakeness of the cross, had broken like stormy waves of a troubled sea on Christ's sensitive spirit. The pain, and the parting, and the solemn awe of death had fallen upon His soul. He was going to bid good-bye to the faces He had loved, to the things that were so beautiful in His eyes, to the lilies and the birds, to those He had clung to on earth, to mother, and brother, and friend, to all that was sweet and dear to His human heart. His thoughts were preoccupied that night. He was preparing Himself for death. His heart was already getting detached from earth. Oh, if ever there was an hour when He might have been forgiven, if He had had no thought but of Himself, it was that night! If ever He might have held Himself exempt from thinking of others, and expected them to think of Him, it was that night. If ever there was an hour when He might have counted selfishness unforgivable, and bitterly resented want of sympathy, it was that night, when His grief was so great and His love so warm and tender. And yet, says John, it was on that night that amongst us all, engrossed in our petty, selfish rivalry, He was the one that could forget Himself, could lay pride aside, and humble His heart, and do the lowly act that made peace amongst us, and melted all our pride away, and made us good, and loving, and fit to hear the wondrous thoughts of grace and love that were glowing in His heart for us and for all mankind.

The lesson is one for good men and women. They are too apt to think, because they have set out on some great enterprise of goodness, that therefore they are exempt from the little courtesies and forbearances of lowlier service. They mean to do good, but they must do it with a high hand and in a masterful fashion. They cannot stoop to conciliate the lukewarm and to win the unsympathetic. And so too often their cherished purpose ends in failure, and we see that saddest sight in Christ's Church—beautiful lives marred and noble service spoiled, because the sacrifice is not complete enough, because pride lingers in the heart, and self-assertion and selfishness. We cannot be faithful in that which is greatest unless we are willing to be faithful also that in which is least.