THE WONDER OF JESUS

"The tokens of man’s highest nature lie not in his being able to comprehend, but in his ability to feel that there are things which he cannot comprehend, and which he yet feels to be true and real, before which he is compelled to fall down in reverent awe." — John Ker.

"When Jesus heard these things, He marvelled at him, and turned Him about, and said unto the people that followed Him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." — St. Luke vii. 9.

"And He marvelled because of their unbelief." — St. Mark vi. 6.

Wonder is the emotion awakened by any object or event, trivial or sublime, which we do not fully comprehend; and it ranges from the merely transient feeling of surprise at an unexpected occurrence, to the feeling of adoration and religious awe with which we contemplate the being, attributes, and works of God. In its lower forms wonder is a merely transient feeling, due to ignorance or the sense of novelty, as when a child is lost in amazement at a conjurer’s tricks, or a savage at the report of firearms. As soon as the operation is understood or the novelty becomes familiar, wonder ceases. Yet even this rudimentary kind of wonder is of vast importance in human life. It stimulates curiosity, the healthy inquisitiveness of the child, the explorer, the scientist; the eager desire to know the world in which we live, and the nature and causes of the things it contains. Such wonder, as Bacon said, is the seed of knowledge.

Wonder in its higher kinds is the tribute our souls pay to that in which we see something of an ideal greatness, beauty, nobility, or strength,1 the admiration which rises at its highest to worship. Such wonder is the emotional source of man’s loftiest aspirations, the mother and nurse of the highest poetry and art, the highest philosophy and the highest religion. Wonder, admiration, reverence is one of the few things by which the soul really grows. And it is a part of our nature which is miserably neglected by many of us. We live in a world of petty, commonplace things, because our own thinking is so superficial and our interests so petty. And we seek, vainly seek, escape from this dull and commonplace world by rushing hither and thither after novelties, while we are blind to the beauty and grandeur before our eyes — nature with its glory of sunset and evening star, its miracle of flower and tree, the pictures of heaven and earth; human life with its daily miracles of love and faith and self-sacrifice. The mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire if only we have eyes to see and souls to feel.

1. The Astonishment of Jesus.

Though little is directly reported of it in the Gospels, this also belonged to the perfection of our Lord Jesus. No one has ever lived in such a marvellous world as He, to whom "the glory in the grass and splendour in the flower" continually revealed the diviner miracle of a Heavenly Father’s munificent love and care. No one ever felt as He did the wonder of God — the infinite majesty and the infinite tenderness, the infinite purity and infinite forgivingness of God. No one has ever felt as He did the wonder of man, of the human soul with its heights and depths, its heroisms of love and loyalty, virtue and self-sacrifice, its marvels too of baseness and ingratitude — the amazingness of sin.

Yet it was not the virtues or the vices of men that most excited the wonder of Jesus. What He is expressly said to have shown Himself astonished at was their faith and unbelief. When He came to His own and His own received Him not, He was stirred out of His habitual calm. He was not taken by surprise. He recognized that His was the common experience of God’s messengers: "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and among his own kin." Still, He marvelled at it. Such blindness, such perversity is really amazing, nor does it become less so by repetition. And when He came to those to whom He was a stranger, like a Roman centurion or a woman of Canaan, and they showed a penetrating insight into His character, and received Him with prompt welcome and vigorous faith, again He marvelled. It was wonderful that they whose faith had such distances to travel and such obstacles to surmount should unerringly find their way to Him — a thing to think upon with wondering thankfulness.

The instance of faith which specially excited His wonder and admiration was that of a Roman officer, who, when he sought from Jesus the healing of a favourite slave, expressed his conviction that Jesus could bring this about from the spot where He was standing as easily as by His actual presence at the sick-bed. "For I myself," he says, "am a man of subordinate rank, owing obedience to my superiors; and I again have under me soldiers, and when I say to one, Go, he goeth; and to another, Come, he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, he doeth it." And he is sure that Jesus in the region of His activity is vested with an authority no less efficacious and far-reaching. If at the word of a centurion the well-drilled cohort moved like a piece of perfect mechanism, at the word of Jesus the legions of heaven, the angels of healing, will instantly obey. It was at this Jesus marvelled. He had never before found faith like this, so swift yet so sure, flying like an arrow to the heart of truth. He had not found it in His own disciples; He had not found it in all Israel, not in a single representative of a nation whose history was shot through with religious ideas and hopes. It was reserved for this Gentile, this mere hanger-on to the skirts of the Chosen People, to form this original and daring conception of Christ’s power, to see under the humble exterior of the Prophet of Nazareth the great Commander of the invisible powers of the Kingdom of God, and to set on His head the Messiah’s crown.

It is evident that the element of unexpectedness entered into this wonder of Jesus. To find such faith in such a quarter was to come upon an Elim in an arid wilderness. The centurion was a pioneer soul, who followed no man’s lead, but made a path in which others should follow. The story of every mission field has to tell of such pioneer souls; everywhere, indeed, they are the makers of history in the Kingdom of God. Yet our Lord’s wonder is not merely the wonder of surprise; it is the deeper wonder of admiration. Such faith as the centurion’s is wonderful in itself, not merely because of its exceptional circumstances. There is something marvellous in all religious faith. So marvellous is it that to Jesus it once seemed a question worth asking, whether at His coming He should find faith in the earth. We think it wonderful if any man is an infidel, whereas really it is much more marvellous that any man is a believer. Just as we esteem it strange if any one is dumb, or lacks any of his senses, or is an idiot, whereas the true marvel is not dumbness but speech, not idiocy but intelligence; so, I say, the most wonderful thing about the human soul is not its worldliness, its atheism, but is its persistent and unconquerable faith in God and the spiritual world.

2. The Wonder of Faith.

Faith! We cannot even express what faith is except in the language of paradox. It is to see Him that is invisible; to look not at the things that are seen, but at things that are not seen. It is to be assured of the reality of what we cannot prove. It is to possess a certainty which we cannot communicate, and which to those who do not share it is quite irrational or, indeed, unintelligible. How wonderful it is,2 if we only think of it, to see a congregation of people joining in the worship of God; rising in praise and bowing down in prayer — to whom? To a Being they have never seen or heard or felt. There is nothing palpable around them but the sounds and sights of earth. Yet they offer praise and prayer, because they believe that such a Being is present in their midst — the King eternal, immortal, invisible. This, I say, is wonderful. No man from the beginning of the world has ever seen God, has ever heard His voice, or touched His hand in its working, or traced His footprints. Men have longed in vain for the vision of God: "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat!... Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot find Him." And yet in so speaking they have but testified their faith. In the same moment that they have said, "He hideth Himself, that I cannot see Him," they have said also, "Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither shall I flee from Thy spirit?" Surely, one may marvel at this.

There are so many things, moreover, that are fitted to shake man’s faith in God. The world has often a godless look. It does not inevitably appeal to one as a world that a God of infinite benevolence, wisdom, and power has made and presides over. The contention between materialism and a spiritual faith, the question whether there is in the universe that confronts us a conscience corresponding to that within us, whether the world of facts is obedient to a law of right, or whether might is the only ultimate right — this is a debate which runs through the whole history of human thought, and is tugging at us to-day as hard as ever. And sometimes it does seem as if unbelief has the best of the argument, as if "all things happen alike to all," and life is all a chance lottery rather than the careful plan of a wise and loving Father. Yet men believe. Faith in the Divine order is rooted in the deepest instincts of our souls, and persistently reasserts itself, the stronger for each rebuff.

Then also, there are so many things in ourselves that are obstacles to faith. Our natural passions and cravings ally us to the present world and make it hard for us to live above it. The world has so much to offer us that we want, home, business, literature, society, politics, work, recreation, pleasures and pains so various and so potent — it lays upon us so many hands to which we readily respond, that it is difficult to feel that God is the supreme reality, and His service our portion for ever. And when in spite of all this you believe in God with a lively faith, is not this wonderful? When you resist the temptations of pleasure or gain, and patiently hold to the path of duty and self-denial because you believe in the righteous and faithful God; when you are content amid poverty because God is yours, at rest under the stress of responsibility and care because you believe in a God who is caring for you; when your life is cut from its familiar moorings and you are out upon strange, uncharted waters, and yet have an anchor to your souls because you believe in God; and when you have peace in your soul and an everlasting hope because you believe in a God whose love bears the whole burden of your sin — then, I think, Christ Himself must marvel and rejoice at your faith. For a weak human being in a world like this to have such faith is wonderful. It is a mystery. You cannot explain it. "Can you explain how the flowers turn to the sunlight; the needle to the pole? It is because they are made for it." So our souls are made for God.

If we consider any of the great religious truths which spring as corollaries from belief in God through Jesus Christ, the creative power which made all things, the Providence without which not a sparrow falleth to the ground, Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, it may be said of all that they are staggering. While they are merely articles of a traditional creed, they do not disturb our mental equilibrium; but no one has known the power of any great religious truth until, in one way or another, he has come to feel how ineffably wonderful it is.

Take, for example, faith in the life to come. How strange a faith that is for

men, whose days are as grass; how marvellous that men should cling so tenaciously to that conviction! Death does seem to be the end of all. Change ending in decay and dissolution is written on the face of everything around us. Man, too, dies and returns to his dust; graves are heaped up from age to age, and lie silent and undisturbed. These things we know; these things we see. The w baffling, sad enigma" is before us day after day; and

                         "To our graves we walk

In the thick footprints of departed men."

And no mortal eye has once seen a ray of light from any land beyond. No one has ever returned to tell us of it. No voice, no whisper has reached as out of that silence. The curtain has never been lifted. Sunset and evening star, and after that — the dark! And yet, marvellously, in the face of all this the human soul has clung to the conviction that the grave is not its goal, and has thrust the daring hand of faith through the screen of mystery, to grasp a larger life beyond. Men have not seen that other world; they cannot by any demonstration prove its existence; still they firmly believe in it, and multitudes live for it and press eagerly toward the mark for the prize. This, I say, is wonderful. I say that there is nothing in man, no gift of genius, no force of will so marvellous as this faith in God and the Life Eternal, which Christ inspires. When we think what men and women of common clay like ourselves have done and suffered for the sake of a God they have never seen and a heaven beyond the clouds, — how they have patiently suffered the loss of all things, and have mounted the fiery pile with joy, clasping their faith to their hearts, as a king the crown which is his glory, or a miser the gold which is his treasure, — this surely is the most marvellous spectacle earth has to show. We do not half feel the wonderfulness of it. We are conscious chiefly of the flaws and imperfections of our faith. We feel how weak and struggling and ineffective it is. We do not see the glory, nor feel the grandeur of it. But one day we shall. What looks mean and meagre under the grey skies of earth will shine out in its proper splendour in the sunshine of Christ’s manifested presence. To have such faith in

God, in the eternal life of righteousness and love, is the highest of which the human soul is capable. It is the triumph of the Divine in man. Christ Himself marvels at it.

And there is no question so central to our life as this: Have we this faith? There is the one broad issue for us all — this faith in God and eternity, in Jesus Christ as the Revealer of God and Saviour of men, is true or it is false. We may have our different interpretations of this faith; but, broadly, it is true or it is false. And it makes all the difference there can be, whether it is eternal fact, or all dream and delusion. Have we unequivocally settled with ourselves the question: If this faith is true, what does it signify for me? What course ought I to follow? What must I do to be saved, and to save others? Let us meet Christ with a mind as frank and sincere and simple as the centurion’s. Christianity may present many difficulties, intellectual and, still more, practical difficulties; but to those who look plainly at plain issues, and give honest answers to honest questions, Christ always says "Follow me"; and in Him, more and more as they follow Him, they find the Way, the Truth, the Life.

3. The Marvel of Unbelief.

Let us consider, for a moment, one other astonishment of Jesus. He marvelled joyfully, thankfully, at the centurion’s faith. No less did He marvel, sorrowfully, as if it were almost too bad to be true, at the unbelief of the men of Nazareth. Never as yet had He suffered so bitter an experience of blind unreasonableness and moral perversity as now, among the people of His own native town. For they were profoundly impressed by Him. The facility and felicity of His speech, the arresting and powerful thoughts which flowed from His lips in an uninterrupted stream of graceful and eloquent utterance, moved them to astonishment. But; t moved what was worst in them. They resented it. His marvellous superiority to themselves was a thing they could neither understand nor tolerate. From whence hath this man these things? they muttered in their chagrin. Is He not one of ourselves? Jesus the village carpenter? By what right has He become a star to shine above us all? So the little men of Nazareth were offended in the Great Man of Nazareth. They could not account for His originality, His wisdom, His mighty works; but with a really wonderful perversity they made the very reasons for believing on Him, reasons for being offended in Him. Well might Jesus marvel at their unbelief.

There is the same cause, or rather far greater cause, for marvel in the unbelief of men to-day. This inexplicable person, Jesus of Nazareth, is with us still, and is more inexplicable than ever. This Jesus, this poor Jew, this carpenter of Nazareth, has become the Christ, the revolutionizer of men’s spiritual life and of the world’s history, whose mighty works are in every quarter of the globe, in whom countless millions have found the inspiration of their lives, whom even unbelief shrinks from putting on a level with the noblest and best of men. He is still the unaccountable man, more unaccountable now than He was to the men of Nazareth. And if Jesus marvelled at the unbelief of His compatriots and contemporaries, much more may He marvel at the unbelief of men today. The flimsiness of many of its pretexts; the paltry considerations for which men sometimes say, "I am done with Christianity; no more religion for me!" the blindness of men to the highest and best when it is set before them; yes, and the sheer vanity which sometimes prompts the profession of unbelief, the intellectual pride which scorns the "little children" of faith, and declines to be set on the same level as the humble believer — all this gives a view of human nature which, in a melancholy sense, is marvellous.

But if Christ marvels at the unbelief of unbelievers, still more does He marvel at that of believers. It was so of old. How often He expressed a sad surprise at the unbelief of His own chosen friends and disciples! Where is your faith? How is it ye have so little faith? He says to the disciples in the storm. We do not wonder at their panic. When the deep hurls its billows upon men, making them the playthings of its awful sport, gaping upon them with the jaws of death, we do not wonder at men being seized with that blind overmastering fear which sweeps away all reason, reverence, and self-control. It is human nature, the last infirmity even of the brave. But Jesus wondered at it in His disciples; He wondered at it, because these men actually had faith. The faith they failed to display was the faith they not only professed but possessed. Where was their faith? the Master asked. They had lost grip of it when they had most need of it, like the raw recruit who in action loses his head, drops his rifle, or in his nervousness forgets to fire it at the critical moment. What is faith for but to make a man something else than a bundle of unstrung nerves in the hour of trial; the conqueror, not the demoralized victim, of circumstances? And if Jesus marvelled at their unbelief, how often has He reason to marvel at ours! We believe in the Christ who died for sin; strange that men who so believe should sometimes act as if wrong-doing were of less consequence than some loss of money or deprivation of enjoyment. We believe in a God who cares for us and guides us through all the intricacies and dangers of this changeful life; strange that we so often succumb to the fret and fever of anxiety and the tremors of fear! We believe that only in the service of God’s will can we find true freedom, only in the love of God and our fellow-men true joy and strength; is it not strange that we do not seek to enter more completely into this greater life, that we do not launch out upon the deep, but still hug the shore of lower aims, anxieties, and ambitions? We know that if we firmly believed in and acted upon what we do believe, the real things, the eternal things, love, truth, faithfulness, kindness, the life of service, Christ as a living presence with us and in us, all things would be possible to us, and we should be blessed above all that the world can give. We know that if the whole Church fully and firmly believed and felt and acted upon what it does believe, the world would soon be absolutely transformed. Sin and shame would flee away, the Kingdom of God would be here. And we know that, weak as we are, it is in God’s power and will to work this in us; and knowing this, and knowing how wonderful and divine a thing is a true and living faith, let us prize and seek it above all else.

There are three great ways God has of increasing our faith, if we will. First, Duty — doing His Will. Nothing makes more real to ourselves all that we believe than promptly to do it; especially when it goes against our own will and inclination. And then, Suffering. It is to enlarge and educate our faith that all our trials and temptations are appointed. And then, in all and through all, Worship, the Word of God, and Prayer, looking in all things unto Jesus, who is both the Author and Perfecter of Faith.

1 The opposites of these also call forth wonder. Wickedness has its marvels as well as goodness; unbelief as well as faith.

2 I am indebted to Newman for this illustration.