THE art of photography is now so perfect that the whole side of a great newspaper can be taken in miniature so small as to be carried in a little pin or button, and yet every letter and point be perfect. So the whole life of Christ is photographed in this one little phrase.
He came not to be served; if this had been His aim He would never have left heaven’s glory, where He wanted nothing, where angels praised Him and ministered unto Him. He came to serve. He altogether forgot Himself. He served all He met who would receive His service. At last He gave His life in serving—gave it to save others, to redeem lost souls.
You say you want to be like Christ. You pray Him to print His Own image on your heart. Here, then, is the image. It is no vague dream of perfection that we are to think of when we ask to be like Christ. The old monks thought that they were in the way to become like Christ when they went into the wilderness, away from men, to live in cold cells or on tall columns. But surely that is not the thought which this picture suggests. “To minister”— that is the Christ-like thing. Instead of fleeing away from men, we are to live among men, to serve them, to live for them, to seek to bless them, to do good, to give our lives.
Christ tells us also that this is the stairway to the highest reaches of Christian life. “Whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all.” To worldly men this seems indeed a strange way of rising. According to this, all man’s scrambling for place and power is really scrambling downward rather than upward. The real heights in human life are the heights of self-forgetfulness and service. We are to use all our redeemed powers in doing good to others in Christ’s Name. That is what Christ did with His blessed life, and we are to follow in His steps.
J. R. Miller, D.D.