STRENUOUS RELIGION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 118, 21 May 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

STRENUOUS RELIGION

BLESSED ARE THE KEEN (H.G.G.) The idea of a saint as “quiet, meek, placid, a little delicate and a little sad,” dies hard. It was not the idea of Jesus, else He could not have given John the Baptist such high praise That fiery prophet certainly had nothing of the ancient idea of conventional sainthood about him. How he withered tho speciously religious people who came out to sec and hear him! How ho blasted with flashing eye and flaming speech! Extortionate tax-gatherers, grafting soldiers, that licentious ruler, Herod, smarted , under the whip of his lashing tongue. “Verily I say unto you,” said Jesus, “Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.” The men Jesus chose to bo His close associates and the founders of His church were no milk and water sort of men. There was nothing very mild about Peter. James and John were known as sons of thunder and would call down fire on a recalcitrant village. Simon the Zealot was not likely to be included in tho Twelve for any easycome, easy-go characteristics in his make-up. Did not Jesus declare that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force? Did He not use such uncompromising terms as hating one’s father and mother and brother and sister? Did He not advise the cutting off of hand or foot rather than remaining whole in body and missing the Kingdom? His call was to all that is robust, masculine, vigorous, courageous, heroic. Oh yes, I know there is another aspect of the Master, and I know how often we emphasise it to the obscuring of this one. Jesus was the Good Physician healing and reviving and restoring, but He was no less the Relentless surgeon piercing and cutting and probing with the cold, sharp instruments of righteousness, truth and holiness. His was a love that could encourage and quicken and sustain, but it was also a love that could cauterise and consume. He was in His very Person a man commanding respect and awe. The stern, uncompromising invective of tho Baptist was turned to a stammering admission of unworthiness when he was confronted with Jesus of Nazareth: "I have need to bo .baptised of Thee and comest Thou to me?” Again and again the authorities would have laid hand on Him, but His very bearing rendered them impotent. His fellow-townsmen would have angrily hurled Him over the cliff, only they found themselves powerless to fulfil their vicious impulse. The soldiers sent to arrest Him in Gethsemane became a rabble as He confronted them, and only carried out. their orders at His bidding. The effect upon the individual was no less striking. From Pilate there was forced the involuntary tribute: "Behold the Man!” from the centurion who watched Jesus die there was forced in like manner the highest praise he could give: "Truly this wae a Son of God.”

We do not need to go so far as Bruce Barton travels in his enthusiasm regarding tho physical attributes of Jesus; he is guilty of more than one over-statement in "The Alan Nobody Knows”; but wo need to beware of the other extreme also. Why do artists picture Jesus with the long, beautifully kept hands of a musician? Our Master was an artisan, who really worked at a trade with real material and real tools. Why do so many give Him effeminate features and a rather frail bearing? They miss the mark as badly as Swinburne docs with his bathos—

“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean, The world has grown grey with Thy breath! ” It was no washed-out peasant with greying breath who arrested the young zealot on the Damascus Road and constrained him to a life of hazard, tribulation and homeless wandering. A personality greater than his own vigorous, robust masculinity was needed to storm the citadel of Saul’s life and make captive his soul and life and all. The words, “I am Jesus,” were answered with a whole-souled surrender, “Lord, what wilt Thou have inc to do?” There was never any doubt in Paul’s mind as to the nature of the Man Christ Jesus. Tn Him there was the call to all the vitality of the strongest and highest and best. The claims of Christ arc all in the superlative. How tho Apostle loved to seize hold of a figure of speech that could give some little idea of the intensity of his loyalty and devotion. The Isthmian games provided him with vigorous appeals in picturesque language. He would have us run so as to obtain a prize. As far as he himself was con-

cerned, “So box I, not as one that beateth the ai •.” He gloried in the tussle against the forces of evil and called it a wrestling match. The Master’s word about striving to enter in at the strait gate would delight the

soul of this fire-eater who, as an old man nearing martyrdom, urges his young son in the Lord to light the good fight of faith and lay hold on eternal life. It is also to Timothy that he gives that manly advise: "Take your share in suffering hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Thorp was no bidding of the world farewell and seeking the seclusion of the monastic life for Paul. He was in the world to

carry on a warfare and would have all Christians realise that they form a mighty army under a Captain of Salvation. Ho would have them put on the whole armour of God and weild the sword of the spirit. "Thanks be unto God,” he cries, “which alwavs leadeth us in triumph in Christ.” lie had no qualms in taking his language and figures from battlefield, gladiatorial arena, athletic stadium. All things were his if th reby he could ro :se men to “gymnast icise ” themselves into godliness, fight the evil within and without, and name their Deliverer. Not that there need be a bowimr ' Hvn in worship to mere brawn Most )f us d.light to see a well-made man. But a magnificent physique doos not necessarily mean a well-equipped brain and a Christ-controlled spirit. One of the finest, saints some of us have

known was frail in body for many years. There was a con taut diminution of physical strength, but we knew there was the renewing of tho inward man day iiy day. Discussions on tho physical appearance of our Lord are after all beside the mark. The Evangelists never felt any need to describe a single feature of His physical attrib utes, so why should we, worry ourselves about the matter? Paui reminds the Galatians that his own physical appearance might well have been tho subject for derision on their part; vet they received him “as an an<rel of God. even as Christ Jesus.” It is energy of mil d and act Jes s calls for, and likes to see. “All other faults and deficiencies Jesus could tolerate, but Ho would have neither part nor lot, with men destitute of enthusiasm.”