Hope of the Gospel by George MacDonald
page 33 of 153 (21%)
page 33 of 153 (21%)
|
one with him. In the meantime, so much are both we and his things his,
that we can err concerning them only as he has made it possible for us to err; we can wander only in the direction of the truth--if but to find that we can find nothing. Think for a moment how Jesus was at home among the things of his father. It seems to me, I repeat, a spiritless explanation of his words--that the temple was the place where naturally he was at home. Does he make the least lamentation over the temple? It is Jerusalem he weeps over--the men of Jerusalem, the killers, the stoners. What was his place of prayer? Not the temple, but the mountain-top. Where does he find symbols whereby to speak of what goes on in the mind and before the face of his father in heaven? Not in the temple; not in its rites; not on its altars; not in its holy of holies; he finds them in the world and its lovely-lowly facts; on the roadside, in the field, in the vineyard, in the garden, in the house; in the family, and the commonest of its affairs--the lighting of the lamp, the leavening of the meal, the neighbour's borrowing, the losing of the coin, the straying of the sheep. Even in the unlovely facts also of the world which he turns to holy use, such as the unjust judge, the false steward, the faithless labourers, he ignores the temple. See how he drives the devils from the souls and bodies of men, as we the wolves from our sheepfolds! how before him the diseases, scaly and spotted, hurry and flee! The world has for him no chamber of terror. He walks to the door of the sepulchre, the sealed cellar of his father's house, and calls forth its four days dead. He rebukes the mourners, he stays the funeral, and gives back the departed children to their parents' arms. The roughest of its servants do not make him wince; none of them are so arrogant as to disobey his word; he falls asleep in the midst of the storm that threatens to swallow his boat. Hear how, on that same occasion, he rebukes his |
|