CHRIST’S WISH FOR HIS PEOPLE
‘Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory.’
The truth that men are judged by their desires finds its highest illustration in Jesus. The perfectness of His wishes. This is one of Christ’s wishes. What does it mean? What would be the effect of its fulfilment? A prayer is merely a wish turned Godward. Christ looked for the fulfilment of His wishes, not to Himself and not to the things about Him, but to His Father; and so in His prayer we have simply the utterance Godward of what He was desiring in His heart.
I. This wish was spoken at Christ’s Last Supper with His disciples.—It is an expression of the Saviour’s affection for His disciples, His dread of being separated from them. When friend is going away from friend, how naturally the wish springs up into words, ‘Oh, if I could only take you with me!’ These primary emotions do exist in Jesus, the proof-marks of His true humanity, the patterns for all humanity; but they are deeper and richer things in Him than in ordinary men, in proportion to the depth and richness of His human nature and the Divinity that was mingled with it. Thus, then, we understand Christ’s longing for the companionship of His disciples. He wanted them to be with Him. That wish of His must have run through all the scale of companionship; but it must have completed itself in the desire that they should be like Him, that they should have His character, that in the obedience and communion of God, where He abode, they should abide with Him. I do not think that we can tell how much it signifies, this wish of Jesus, in its lower meaning of physical companionship. I am sure it does mean something. I am sure that in the Bible something is promised, some close perpetual association of the souls of Christ’s redeemed to Him, which, over and above the likeness which is to come between their souls and His, shall correspond in some celestial way to that close, visible, tangible propinquity with which they sat by one another at the table in the upper chamber. The ‘seeing His face,’ the ‘walking with Him in white’ in heaven, are not wholly figures.
II. He wants them to be with Him, ‘that they may behold His glory.’—Before the words can be cut entirely free from low associations and soar into the high, pure meaning which belongs to them, we must remember what Christ’s glory is which He wants us to see. Its essence, the heart and soul of it, is His grace and goodness. What outward splendour may clothe Christ eternally we cannot know. But this we are sure of, that the glory of God must issue from and consist in the goodness of God, not in His power. It is the very purpose of religion, it is the battle that Christianity has been fighting with the standards of the world for all these centuries, to make men know that power without goodness is not really glorious. In Him, too, nothing but goodness can be really glorious in the eyes of moral creatures. His power is the emphasis set upon His goodness; the brilliant light thrown through the perfect window, showing the window’s glory, not its own. It is the prerogative of our morality that only in a moral character can it discover the glory that shall call out its fullest adoration. It is Christ’s goodness, then, that He would have His people see. In various words, under various figures, Christ is the intercessor, always offering prayers for men; but all His prayers resolve themselves into the same wish; all are asking for the one same thing. It is always that men become saved from sin, that His goodness might come to us and we become good. There is something very impressive, I think, about this, as it becomes more and more plain to us. I hear God at work everywhere on the lives of men. Wherever I go I hear men answering to some touch of His. They may not know that it is His touch which they are answering; but one who believes in Him knows that these things about us are not all doing themselves, but He does them.
III. Christ asked His Father simply for this, that those whom He loved might come to Him in spiritual likeness.—We use still, in our religious talk, the words which express what Christ desired, but too often they have acquired some small meaning and degenerated into cant. We talk about a man being ‘far from Christ.’ Men mean by that too often something technical, something narrow; the not having undertaken certain ceremonies, or passed through certain experiences. But how much the words really mean. What a terrible thing it is to be really ‘far from Christ!’ To be far from purity is to be impure. To be far from spirituality is to be sensual. To go away from the light is to go into the outer darkness. Not to be ‘with Him where He is’ is to be away from Him where He is not, where sin is and the misery that belongs to sin. And then that other phrase, which we use so often, ‘Coming nearer and nearer to Christ,’ we say; that does not mean creeping into a refuge where we can be safe. It means becoming better and better men; repeating His character more and more in ours. The only true danger is sin, and so the only true safety is holiness. What a sublime ambition! The dearest and noblest being that our souls can dream of stands before us and says, ‘Come unto Me’; stands over us and prays for us, ‘Father, bring them where I am.’
—Bishop Phillips Brooks.
Illustration
‘Bunyan’s words are worth quoting. The immortal dreamer says: “Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and behold the city shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men, with crowns on their heads, palms in their heads, and golden harps, to sing praises withal. There were also them that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.’ And, after that, they shut up the gates, which, when 1 had seen, I wished myself among them,” “I wished myself among them.” I marvel not at that wish; it was realised in Bunyan’s case when he entered into the joy of his Lord. Ah! I dare say many a burdened heart echoes that wish. “I wish myself among them. Here I am tossed about with conflict, and sin, and fear. Oh, that I were yonder!” But, hush! God’s time is best. And be very sure “Christ won’t be in glory and leave you behind.” ’