SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1930, Page 19 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By REV.

A. H. COLLINS

THESE TWELVE. “And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and that Ho might send them forth.” Saint Mark HI. 14. My first glimpse of the Rhine was at its cradle in the Splugen Pass, as it issued from alpine snows —a thin silver streak that a 1 little child could stride. Later I saw it a broad-breasted river; its far-stretching shores dotted with' ancient, castles and busy towns, its ample waters bearing the commerce of a nation as it hastened to the sea. Our text is the Splugen Pass, and we'stand beside the river of God. • The river was born in the hills of Galilee, and gave little promise of its later splendour. Today it has reached many lands, and carried health and wealth to the nations. “These twelve.” Why twelve ? „ Was the number accidental or design? Not accidental surely, for there were other equally eligible men, and only a little later Christ found seventy men and sent them forth, two' by two. But if designed, what was the design? The number is significant. Every Jew would, understand what the number implied. The nation of Israel consisted of twelve tribes, and Jesus Christ'; made - the stupendous claim 1 to be the promised Messiah. The ancient and . glowing prophecies of David and Isaiaji, and all the hopes that blazed in their scriptures, had found fulfilment in Him.” “These twelve” were “the sons of the prophets,” and behind their enterprise lay the hopes and promises, of God. They faced a hostile world, and their very number would remind them of the tribes of Israel, which had survived the shocks of. change and conflict. “He appointed twelve” > says Dr. Chadwick, “in clear allusion to the tribes of a new Israel.” TWELVE FOR FELLOWSHIP. • In Saint Mark’s version of the calling of the twelve there is another reason; suggested. “He appointed twelve that they might be with Him.” One of the human touches in the life of the Master is His crave for fellowship and sym-. pa thy;' the touch of a friendly hand, and the sound of a friendly voice. “His delights were with the sons of men.” He was no recluse, standing off in aloofness. When He agonised in the garden of Gethsemane, He was manifestly hurt to find Peter, James and John asleep. “Could ye not watch with me ?” He cried, in pained surprise. On the eve of His death He sought the healing quiet of a friendly roof in Bethany. Part of the. burden of His life was that hien shut Him out of their friendship and left Him alone. “These twelve.” What sort of men were they? The calling of these men was a new departure, and the importance of it may be seen in the fact that Christ spent the preceding night in lonely vigil. Very much depended on this choice. He had come to establish an everlasting kingdom, and everlasting kingdoms need adequate foundations. The Chinese have a proverb, “You can’t carve rotten timber.” Mr. Herbert Spencer states the same truth in memorable words: “There is no political method by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instinct.”

A SURPRISING CHOICE. The remarkable thing is that Jesus Christ called men, not angels; but the most surprising thing is that He called such men. For he- began at the fag end of the social scale. The apostles were men of “no class.” There was not a man of outstanding gift or station; not a single nobleman, or rabbi, or councillor. There was Peter the fisherman, Matthew the publican and -Simon the Bolshevist. It is literally true, as Saint Paul wrote, “not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble a.re called.” It is not that Jesus Christ is a class Saviour. Later His followers included Saul of Tarsus, a Jew of purest blood, and the flower of scholarship; Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; but at the beginning, as Dr. Bruce points out, “Jesus had to be content with fishermen and publicans, and quondam zealots, because they were the best that could be had. “His friends and helpers were men of humble gifts and Stajtipn, but with Honest and believing hearts.

The moral? No statesman can afford to omit the common people from his plans and calculations. Kings and nobles are blossoms on the national tree, but the common people are the root. The roof is more dependent on the foundation than the foundation on the roof. Nearly all the great movements which have changed the thinking of the life of the world have been from the bottom up, and not from the top downward. Great and beneficent resolutions liave generally been cradled in poverty.

TO CALL BAD MEN. “Life as you ascend tends to become more and more artificial. Wc gain culture at the expense of innocence, so that in every age it has been true that God reveals to babes what He hides from the wise and prudent. To speak to the heart of humanity, these plain peasants of Galilee were far better fitted than the most learned of Jerusalem’s rabbi’s.”

More arresting still is the fact that “these twelve” were men of no character, until Christ took them in hand. The Master propounded the amazing doctrine that He came on His long quest in order to call bad men to Himself. “I am come not te call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” The worse the man the deeper Christ’s interest in Him! We have grown famililar with the facts and think little of itj but think yourself back twice a thousand years, and imagine what the world thought of the teacher who proclaimed his chief concern to bo with publicans and sinners. Polite society-was scandalised, as wo should have been; yet Christ held on His way. He had come to build a kingdom of righteousness out of the moral derelicts of the world.

Lord Macaulay tells of an English minster where stands a stained glass window made by an apprentice out of scraps, which had been thrown aside; yet it is so superior that the artist of other windows killed himself for very envy. The builders of the ancient world had rejected and dcspi>c.! tbc ignnrnnt

and poor and made painted windows out of scribes and pharisees, but a new artist came, whose method was original and revolutionary. His eye was on the despised material. He made the last first. He cared for the sinner. He ;ook the rejected and scorned to His roomy heart and holds them there for ever. EACH ONE DIFFERENT. But Christ made no duplicates. No two of the twelve were alike. They differed in gift, in temperament, and in thought. Peter the impulsive, John, the mystical, Matthew the practical, Thomas the doubtful, Nathaniel the guileless, Andrew the modest,' Simon the zealot, Bartholomew the noisy, and so on, through the whole list. One wore the livery of Rome, and another took up arm<s against that imperial authority; as if from the beginning Christ would have us understand that caste and uniformity have no place in the Church. When the tide is out, the shore is dotted with little pools, and each pool has its shrimp or minnow, and if these tiny things. could, speak, I suppose they would say that their little pool is all the water there is. But when the tide turns and the" sea swings, the pools are wiped out by the great and wide sea. Names and sects and parties fall, Thou, 0 Christ, art all in all. Our secretarian jealousies, our national hates, and the clash of colour are foreign to .the spirit of Jesus Christ. “You can play a tune of sorts,” said Dr. Aggrey, the negro patriot, “on the 'white keys of the piano, and you can play a tune of sorts on the black keys; but for harmony you must use both the black and the white.” Sectarianism in spirit and in form 1 is par excellence the cult of the incomplete. It is the refusal to consider truth in terms of the whole. It pins its trust to the dicta of a group or the findings of a fixed period. It is content to worship and to defend a conception of God, instead of God. It lacks the shape of the cross, which rises vertically, as high as God, and stretches right and left to the outermost bounds of humanity.

LEARNING OF CHRIST. - Two things claim a parting word. When Christ called, “these twelve,” they were r z, ignorant, undisciplined, and needed to be with Christ and learn ere they began to teach. It seems a simple thing to say, and yet.it ie fundamental. Discipleship must Come before apostleship. We can only teach wliat we know, and we must learn of Christ before we are fit to teach others about Him. Just as Joshua learned of Moses and Samuel learned of Eli and. Timothy of Paul, so “these twelve” were called to be with the Master and learn of Him, by living with Him. The second thing is equally important, and. the whole Church needs to hear it.' Discipleship is not an end, but a means to an end. We are saved to serve. V/e learn in order to communicate to others. The end of the calling is sending. These twelve were called and chosen and sent, for the calling and the sending are part of the one purpose. "■ If you will take your New Testament and find the passages where the word “apostle” is used, you will discover that in each case you can use the word “missionary.” “Apostles” are above everything else “missionaries,” and apostleship is the end of discipleship. We are saved to serve. Dr. J. D. Jones tells the story of a ship which came across another with sails blown to ribbons and mast broken. There was no sign of life, but a boat put off to examine the derelict. They found a man with sunken cheeks, a mere ruckle of bones, but not dead. Restoratives were applied, and those who bent over him caught the whisper, “There’s another man.” The rescued man’s first thought was of the other man who needed saving. That other may be friend, or neighbour, or perfect stranger, but if we have found Messiah ourselves we shall wish to make Him known, and the desire to win others to Jesus Christ is the measure of the value we set on Christ for ourselves.

Then I preached Christ; and when she heard the story,— Oh, is such triumph possible to men? Never, my King, had I beheld Thy glory, Never had known Thine excellence till then.