ANY crisis in human or national life is a touchstone, by which may be tested the reality of our belief in, or the loyalty of our friendship to a given cause or person. This is especially true of a tremendous crisis such as the war in which we are now engaged. It has brought to light many things that else might have remained undiscovered: the latent heroism of simple people; the quiet self-sacrifice of those who have given, and will give, all they have and are to their country’s cause; the cowardice that was concealed behind bravado; the self-seeking that was veiled behind professions of patriotism.
“Love” is a much-abused word, though it should express all that is highest and holiest, for “God is Love” —and love can only be measured in terms of sacrifice. The greater our love, the more, and the more gladly, will we sacrifice for its object, for love must serve. When Christ commended Mary Magdalene’s sacrifice, in His honor, of the pot of precious ointment, He did not commend the costliness of the gift, but the fact that “she hath done what she could”: she had washed His feet with tears, and wiped them with her hair, and the love that prompted that passionate gesture of personal service was the love that broke the precious vase of ointment also. It could do no more.
Our love to God, our country, or to mankind is the measure of our sacrifice; and what do we give, most of us? The time we can afford when all our own affairs have received their full need of attention, the thought we can spare from our own lives, the broken meats from our tables.
Yet God, who is Love, has given us an example that should shame our niggardly sacrifices. Who among us would give their loved and only Son to die a shameful death for those who scorned and hated Him?
At this Christmas season let us turn our thoughts back along the years to that quiet night in Bethlehem when the future of the whole world was changed because a little Child was born to a homeless couple, lodged in a stable. He came so quietly―only a few shepherds and the wise men knew of Him―and yet no event in the world’s history has had such stupendous consequences. Then, as now, the standard of greatness was a material, transient one; and after nearly 2,000 years of His example and teaching there are still few who realize that with God it is the hidden things of the heart that count.
He came, “not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life as ransom for many”: to live a life of service to those who misunderstood Him, and whose jealousy of His goodness lashed them to furious hatred; and at the end of it all, to stand alone in the universe, facing all evil, all enmity, unconquerable and uncomplaining in the hour of torment and death; and shadowed by the withdrawal of God’s love and pity. Nothing but blackness above and around — His Father’s love withdrawn, and human friends standing afar off; and yet, through those mists of horror, faith rose on eagle wings, her eyes piercing beyond the moment, looking to the end; and from the ashes of love’s perfect sacrifice there bloomed the fadeless flower of eternal life, through the blood of Him who died to bring it to us.
Whatever we do, we can bring no gift to Him but ourselves, to be used as He sees best — all that is good in us comes from Him: we may be channels of blessing, but the life-giving stream comes from Him alone — we can only allow it free course.
Failure in any way to keep His law of love brings its own inevitable retribution; but to keep it is no virtue, it is our simple duty. A soldier is not rewarded for obeying orders, he is expected to do so; but disobedience means punishment, and may even mean danger, and death to others, or the defeat of the cause for which he is supposed to be fighting. At best we can only say, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.”
Christ has given us an example, and though we can never come near to that perfection, we may strive after it, and steer our course through the shoals and quicksand’s of life by that fixed star. He did not give what He could spare—He gave Himself, and that is the perfect pattern of sacrifice and service of which we make such poor, botched copies.
Yet we are satisfied with them. We do not see how much better we might have done, according to the Master’s standard; we praise ourselves because we have, we think, done more than some others, although we cannot be sure even of that. We do the things that show, and receive the praise of men, but one day our ostentation will be shamed by those whose quiet lives of secret self-sacrifice are lived only for the Master’s praise. He does not applaud the gift, or the act, but the spirit that prompted it; and if that spirit was not His spirit of love, then the deed or gift itself is worthless.
Only a cup of water
To a weary, burdened one:
A gift no other would acclaim,
But given with love, in the Saviour’s name —
And the Master said, “Well done.”
Only a gentle answer,
Only a loving word:
None knew with what heartache the word was said.
Or the prayer for grace that to Heaven sped;
But the Master saw, and heard.
What can we render the Master
For all His love has given?
He asks no jewels of earthly price,
But riches of love and sacrifice
For His treasure-house in Heaven.
C.G.