Blogotional

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Herrick Johnson, Ex-Professor of homiletics, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago; born Kaughuewaga, N. Y., September 22, 1832; graduated from Hamilton College, 1857; Auburn Theological Seminary, 1860; received D.D. from Western Reserve College, LLD. from Wooster University, DCL. from Omaha University; ordained to Presbyterian ministry, 1860; pastor in Troy, N. Y., 1860-62; of the Third church, Pittsburg, 1862-67; of the First church. Philadelphia, 1868-74; professor of homiletics and pastoral the¬ology, Auburn Theological Seminary, 1874-80; pastor of Fourth Presbyterian church, Chicago, 1880-83; author of ‘‘Christianity‘s Challenge,’’ ‘‘Revivals: Their Place and Power,’’ ‘‘Plain Talks about the Theatre,” ‘‘Presbyterian Book of Forms,” ‘‘From Love to Praise,’’ etc.


“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today; yea, and forever." - Heb. 13 : 8.

Change is stamped upon everything earthly. Nature takes on ever-varying moods. Society is in a constant state of transformation. When we visit old scenes and renew old associations, we find they are not what they were before. Even the old homestead, hallowed by tender memories, and tho kept through generations, must needs have its beloved face marred by patches of repair. Time makes furrows in the checks that were once full, and dims the eyes that once flashed like jewels. The soul behind the eyes is also changed with the changing years; so that neither the form nor the spirit of friends remains the same to us.

And there is a sense, of course, in which we would not have this otherwise. What would nature be without her infinite variety? A particular sunset, however gorgeous and brilliant its hues, would grow absolutely unbearable with exact, monotonous, daily repetition.

Think of life, fixed in grooves, and stamped with changelessness. It would be living death. Precious and matchless as infancy is, what mother would have her babe remain a babe? Her chief joy is that her new-born child grows. An old infant! What an anomaly! Think of a mother carrying about in her arms and hugging to her bosom a twenty- or thirty-year-old baby! The very, suggestion is both ludicrous and repugnant.

No, we love change. A world of ravishing delight comes to us through the law of development. Things that grow, having life in them, how they outrival the lifeless things manufactured in shops! The top of creation is man, and he is fullest of changing moods and wills.

If, therefore, it should be written of things and men, of nature and society, “the same yesterday, today and forever,” this world would be a desert.

Yet this is exactly what has been written of Jesus Christ, and written of Him, too, as if it were His unique, peculiar crown and glory! There must be a sense, therefore, in which for Him to be the same today and tomorrow and evermore would be occasion of unspeakable comfort.

And we do not need to think long or far to find this sense. It is at the door of our daily life. It enters into our most cherished relationships. It furnishes the basis for trust. The uniformity of nature is what gives us faith in nature. It is belief in the changeless order that makes vast enterprises possible. It is confidence in man‘s continuing as he is that leads to far-reaching ventures and compacts. Just as we count on the constancy of a friend, do we trust that friend.

Unchangeableness is therefore a peerless quality when we conceive of it as unity, but not uniformity; constancy, hut not mechanical rigidity; the play of an infinite variety, with the fixedness of eternal principle.

What is it we want most in a bosom friend, when we and that friend come together again after long separation? That he be the same dear old trusted companion to whom we breathed our confidences, and with whom we walked in most loving and joy-giving fellowship in other years. How eagerly we look into his eyes, wondering if he is still the very same! Well, when we part with the best friend, we can not be quite sure he will be the same when we come back. But who of us has not at times wished he could be sure!

Blessed be God! there is one being who changes not. And it is of Jesus Christ our Lord, “the chief among ten thousand” and “the one altogether lovely,” that this matchless word is spoken.

So, if we wish to know what Jesus is, we only need to find out what He was, when He walked among men. What He was in the yesterday of His earthly life, He is in the today of His heavenly life, and shall be forever.

What was He in His earthly life? For one thing, He was always approachable. This is one of the most remarkable qualities with which Christ is stamped in the gospel record. And is it not one of the rarest in the personal history of men? From the very necessities of public and official life, as men grow famous and come in touch with wider and wider interests, they get hedged about with more or less of circumstance and condition that hinder familiar and unimpeded approach to them. It was the setting aside of many of these stately forms and regulations by the beloved Abraham Lincoln, and the living in constant sympathetic relation with the people, the door of his great nature being ever open to their need, that so endeared this martyred hero to the popular heart.

And friendship has one of its sweetest phases in this - the approachableness it invites and furnishes. Just as we find ourselves barred from access by the conventionalities or the engagements of life, do the shadows fall on our hearts. Watch a little child. Where does it fly when trouble comes? To the one place always open to it, the one covert where shelter has never been refused - the mother’s bosom. One of the glories of true motherhood is approachableness. One of the curses of a home is to have this quality farmed out to a hired nurse.

A Savior, to meet the need of simple, struggling, suffering, and often impotent and sometimes despairing men, must be always approachable. If there is even an hour when He can not be reached,, in that hour a sinner may perish. There must be no exigencies of government, no demands of multitudinous host, no public honor, no private feasts, to keep him from the approach of one who needs His help.

And Jesus met this condition to the full. He was always approachable. On the public road, in the midst of the joyful acclaims of the multitude hailing Him as King, a blind beggar could come to Him and receive sight. In the crowded house a paralytic of years could be brought to him and get the power to take up his bed and walk. At a private feast a woman that had sinned, a harlot of the street, could come to Him, and, bathing His feet with her penitent tears, receive from His lips the gracious words, “Go in peace: thy sins be forgiven thee.” Thank God, He was never shut away from the people He came to save. He had no private quarters. No inner office stamped “No admittance” and too sacred for the intrusion of honest inquiry. There was no place where He could not be sought and found. He had no business, and allowed none, that kept Him from the business of healing and helping men - of seeking and saving the lost. He was occupied with nothing that shut His ear against the cry of want. When alone in the solitude of the night, a ruler of the Jews came to Him, and got instruction as to the kingdom of God. When weary, sitting at the well, travel-worn and seeking rest, a Samaritan woman came to Him, and got from Him a cup of living water for her thirsty soul. When asleep in the ship, timid disciples came to Him, and, waking Him, could find a calm, both for their affrighted spirits and the tossing sea. When on a march of triumph, when in a desert place, when tempted, when dying - from first to last there was never an hour He could not be got at.

He had no preengagements, not one. Anybody could come to Him - absolutely anybody. The loving, of course, could come. Love makes a way in where nothing else can. We all welcome this angel guest. And Jesus did. The visits of love seemed a solace to this sad, great heart. Mary with her cruse of precious ointment; the other Mary with her heart swept clean of devilish possessions; the soiled woman with nothing but her grateful tears; Peter with his bruised and penitent spirit; Paul with his flaming ardor of devotion, loving possibly deepest and most fervently - these all found Jesus always approachable.

But the doubting also could come to Him. Fearing, challenging, wondering, questioning - no matter! What honest doubter ever failed of being met by Him as Thomas was; not to be rebuked for his doubt, but to be trusted out of it, if he only came. Jesus had no thunders for this honest soul that trembled and questioned and would put his Lord to the proof. He welcomed the doubter, tenderly met his need, and furnished the evidence. And He is the same yesterday and today and forever.

The heavy-hearted came, too, and were never turned away without the burden being lifted off. The poor, the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind, the palsied, the bruised ones, the tired and lonely, with strength clean gone, the hungry wanting bread, and the heart-hungry starving on the husks of formalism - how they flocked to Him; and always to find Him!

And even the outcasts came; the publicans and the harlots. And by these He was approachable, as by all the rest. He never broke a bruised reed, not one. “Send her away, she crieth after us,” said His disciples. But Christ sent nobody away, until the need was met. There were brought unto Him little children that He should put His hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them. What rudeness these mothers were guilty of, thus interrupting Christ in the midst of His wondrous speech! And of what use could He be to babes? Ah! those well-meaning but blinded disciples; they did not know Him. He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” Does this not seem almost best of all, that He was always approachable by the children?

Mothers! lie is the changeless Christ. Do you take in all the meaning there is to you in this wondrous word? Picture that scene! Think of that listening crowd, the weighty divine speech that was dropping from those sacred lips, the strange interruption, the mothers bringing their babes, the rebuking disciples, and Jesus saying, “Suffer the little children to come” - and remember, He is the same today and forever, thinking just as much of babes now as then; and just as sure to lay His hands upon your little ones and speak His blessing on them, and interest Himself in their behalf now as when He took the children in His arms at Capernaum.

But again: Jesus on earth was always ready to hear prayer. What we want in a helper is to hear us when we cry to him. Does God hear prayer? Will He hear prayer in any conceivable circumstances? Jesus did. Blind Bartimaeus sat by the wayside begging. He heard the tramp and roar of a great multitude. He inquired what it meant. They told him “Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.” And the blind man cried out, saying, “Jesus, have mercy on me.” And Jesus caught the cry of the wayside beggar, stood still, stopt the journey to Jerusalem, hushed the hosannas, commanded the blind man to be brought to Him, and gave him his sight.

Again, when Christ was dying, when the agony of death was on Him, when the burden of a sinful world was on His heart, when a jeering mob beneath the cross on which He was crucified railed at Him with awful imprecations and blasphemy - amid all that babel of hell, lie caught the cry of the penitent thief and answered it, commanding for him an entrance into paradise.

Prayer was never offered to Him in this earthly life that He did not listen to. No sounding hallelujahs of a triumph march, no raging passions of men bent upon His life, no occupation of absorbing interest, whether in deed or speech, could stop His ear from listening to the cry of a human heart. Amid any confusion of tongues and any babel of angry noises of conflicting interests and claims, He always heard prayer.

Just as there are ears strung with such exquisite delicacy of adaptation that they will detect in any flood of tumultuous harmony the chords for which they have an affinity— so Jesus seemed strung to catch the notes of prayer; and He caught them whenever they were struck, no matter with what roar of other voices the air was filled.

You who pray; you who sometimes cry and get no answer; you who have hesitated to pray, thinking that it could not be that the ascended Lord would hear - do you think He has lost that exquisitely tender and sympa¬thetic relation to human need, since He went to heaven? No! In this respect, as in the others I have named He is the same for evermore - the changeless Christ. And therefore there can be no vast concerns of His mediatorial kingdom, no bursts of rapture by angelic hosts, no trumpet-notes of redemption’s victory, and no shoutings of the multitudes of the saved, that can make Him deaf to the cry of a penitent or believing heart on earth.

Reader, looking upon this page and read¬ing it, are you a sinner blinded by sin and wanting sight? Are you a Christian father or mother having a child that needs the touch of the divine healer? Are you a doubter, wondering if the gospel story can be true? Pray! 0 I beseech you, speak to this changeless Christ, who caught every cry that was ever made to Him when He was here. He is the same today and forever.

This blessed Lord Jesus when on earth forgave sin.

Take the instances in His life that set this forth with a luminous fullness and a blessed emphasis. Recall Zacchaeus, the despised publican, the sinner, desiring to see that blessed face, “whose very looks, he was told, shed peace upon restless spirits and fevered hearts”; and trembling with desire and expectation, he found Jesus desiring to see him. Seeking Jesus, he himself was sought. He found there were two seeking. And as the good old Scotch woman said, “Where there are twa seekin’, there’ll always be a findin’.”

Zacchaeus was met with sympathy and for¬giveness. But what did the sneering Pharisees say? They said, “Jesus has gone to be guest with him that is a sinner.” As if Jesus had not left heaven on that very business! Zacchaeus a sinner! Yes; but it is a saying worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Zacchaeus lost! Yes; but the Son of Man is come to seek and save that which is lost.

Take the case of the publican, who, with the Pharisee, went up to the temple to pray. “God, I thank thee that 1 am not as other men are,” prayed the Pharisee. “God be merciful to me a sinner,” prayed the publican. Who did Jesus say went down to his house justified? “Justified?” asked an old soldier to whom this parable was read as he lay dying. He was scarred by sin as well as by battle. His face was seamed and ridged with the hoofs of appetite. He had been an awful sinner. But he had been touched in camp by the Christlike courage and tenderness and fidelity of a young comrade soldier. And this soldier of Christ had read to him the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, and had taught him to pray, “God be merciful to me a sinner’" - “Justified,” asked the dying veteran, “Did Jesus say that!” “Yes,” was the reply, ‘‘Jesus said the publican went down to his house justified.” “God be merciful to me a sinner,’’ broke from the trembling lips. And that day he was with Jesus in paradise. And this Savior of sinners today is just the same.

Mark another trait of this Jesus of Nazareth. He was always ready to sympathize and help.

Have you ever noticed how often the Gospels speak of Jesus as moved with compassion? Seeing the man bound by Satan, lo! many years, Christ was moved with compassion. Seeing the multitude scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd, He was moved with compassion. The beggars at the Jericho gate moved him with compassion. A leper moved Him with compassion. Most touching instance of all, they were carrying out of the city of Nain “one that was dead, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion.

Right up into heaven He carried this sympathetic nature; and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to him there, making intercession for us, a high priest, sympathetic still; able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. No wonder the sacred writer adds, “Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.’’

Blessed be God for the changeless Christ. What an argument this puts into the mouth of prayer. Thou hast been my help, cries the psalmist; therefore, leave me not; neither forsake me, 0 God of my salvation! We can plead God’s past goodness as a reason for con¬tinued goodness. We can ask Him for more because He has given us so much.

And what a sense of Christ’s nearness this theme gives us. Our Lord has not gone on a journey. He is not asleep. He is not hedged about with infinite dignities. lie is never behind locked doors. lie has no preengagements. On earth lie was always approachable. He is just so now. On earth He was always ready to forgive sin and to sympathize with the bruised and broken-hearted, and He is just so now. On earth He was always ready to hear prayer. And He is just so now - the same yesterday, today and forever.

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