The life of Jesus was the bright shining of a candle. It was such a lamp in the house of God as needed no golden tongs or snuff-dishes. It was ordered before the Lord continually, burning as from pure beaten oil. It was making manifest all that was around, exposing and reproving, but it ever held its own place uncondemned.
Whether challenged by disciples or adversaries as the Lord was again and again, there is never an excusing of Himself. On one occasion, disciples complain,
“Master, carest Thou not that we perish?” but He does not think of vindicating the sleep out of which this challenge awakes Him. On another occasion they object to Him,
“The multitude throng Thee and press Thee, and sayest Thou, 'Who touched Me?'” But He does not heed this inquiry but acts upon the satisfaction of it.
At another time, Martha says to Him,
“Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,” but He does not excuse His not having been there, nor His delaying for two days in the place where He was, but instructs Martha in the wondrous character which His delay had given to that hour.
What a glorious vindication of His delay that was! And thus it was on every like occasion whether challenged or rebuked, there is never the recalling of a word, nor the retracing of a step. Every tongue that rises in judgment against Him He condemns.
The mother rebukes Him in Luke 2, but instead of making good her charge she has to listen to Him convicting the darkness and error of her thoughts. Peter takes it upon himself to admonish Him,
“This be far from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee,” but Peter has to learn that it was Satan himself that in Peter prompted the admonition.
The officer in the palace of the high-priest goes still further correcting Him and smiting Him on the cheek, but he is convinced of breaking the rules of judgment in the very face and place of judgment.
All this tells us of the way of the perfect Master. Appearances might have been against Him at times. Why did He sleep in the boat when the winds and waves were raging? Why did He loiter on the road when Jairus' daughter was dying? Or why did He tarry where He was when His friend Lazarus was sick in the distant village of Bethany? But all this is but appearance, and that for a moment. We have heard of these ways of Jesus—this sleep, this loitering and this tarrying, but we also see the end of Jesus, that all is perfect.
Appearances were against the God of Job in patriarchal days. Messenger after messenger seemed too much, unrelenting and inexorable, but the God of Job had not to excuse Himself, nor has the Jesus of the evangelists.
Therefore when we look at the Lord Jesus as the lamp of the sanctuary, the light in the house of God, we find at once that the tongs and snuff-dishes cannot be used. They are discovered to have no counterpart in Him, consequently they who undertook to rebuke or challenge Him when He was here, had to go back rebuked and put to shame themselves. They were using the tongs and snuffers with a lamp that did not need them, and they only betrayed their folly, and the light of this lamp shone the brighter, not because the tongs had been used, but because it was able to give forth some fresh witness (which it did on every occasion) that it did not need them.
And from all these instances we have the happy lesson that we had better stand by, and let Jesus go on with His business. We may look and worship, but not meddle or interrupt, as all these were doing in their day—enemies, kinsfolk and even disciples.
They could not improve the light that was shining, they had only to be gladdened by it, and walk in it and not attempt to trim or order it.
Let our eye be single and we may be sure that the candle of the Lord, set on the candlestick, will make the whole body full of light.