THE GRIP OF JESUS ON THE SOUL OF MAN

THIS is indeed a big subject. It might include the whole history of the Christian Church, not only in this land, but in all lands. It might show how in all nations, under all skies, on all shores, and through all ages, not men's theories about Jesus, nor the elaborate ceremonial men have connected with Jesus, but Jesus Himself, has gripped the souls of men; and, in spite of many disquieting tendencies, Jesus never gripped the souls of men as He does to­day. It would take more space than we have available to deal with such a subject. Indeed, it would take more space than we have available to enumerate His triumphs. He has altered the name of the years, made many wars to cease, uplifted womanhood, given new dignity to manhood, made of paramount importance the lives of little children, improved industrial conditions, made much evil impossible, and made men more ashamed of such evil as persists. He has been responsible for laws on the statute‑book; and in the world of thought, where so many have groped after God, guessed about Him, philosophized concerning Him, Jesus has lived a life of such spiritual grandeur that increasing millions of men, when they want to think about God, can
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think nothing so true, so satisfactory, or so adequate as that God is like Jesus. Lecky, the dispassionate historian, rightly says, 'The simple record of three short years of Christ's active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the dis­quisitions of philosophy and all the exhortations of moralists.'

I wish, however, to narrow the estimate down, and try to realize the grip of Jesus on the individual soul. I well remember Dr. Fosdick telling us on one occa­sion how as a boy he was taken to a country fair. He was interested by the exhibits, amused by the mountebanks, and delighted with what he calls the ' goodies.' But they told him there was one thing he ought to see before lie went away. He stepped into a quiet tent, not expecting to see so fine a thing in so coarse a place, and there, before his almost startled eyes, was the original of Munkacsy's great picture of Christ before Pilate. Dr. Fosdick said that he felt like Moses when he took the shoes from off his feet, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground. He said, ' I can see myself yet with my cap pulled off my head as I stood there, so unex­pectedly hushed, and watched the Master standing silent before the judgement‑seat of Pilate, and from that day to this, when anybody brings me into His presence, I am thus subdued and humbled. I can argue against anything except that kind of life,' Why is it that Jesus has such an amazing grip on the soul?

It is a great privilege for one who is constantly preaching to hear a preacher. Sometimes I have
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been greatly helped by getting intellectual light on some difficult problem. Sometimes I have gathered a new interpretation of Scripture which makes its message clearer and brighter and easier to under­stand. Sometimes I have seen more clearly what would be the right thing to do in this dilemma of the conscience and in that. Sometimes I have heard a man diagnose a sick soul with amazing cleverness, and marvelled and rejoiced at the tenderness and skill with which he straightened things out. Some­times I have been to services in which I have become stirred to take a share with others in battling against evil. But there is for me no service in the world to compare with the service in which step by step I am led to kneel in the presence of Jesus, and am left there. There are moments when one's whole nature is hushed and quieted, arrested and gripped. There is that sense of ' otherness ' when one feels utterly subdued and humiliated, and yet at the same time utterly exalted and proud. One almost hears the voice that by the Sea of Galilee said, ' Follow Me,' and one rises and goes away from that service better, purer, braver. One of the most amazing facts of life is the grip of Jesus on the soul of man.

I was reading some time ago the opinions of various people on the film entitled The King of Kings. Some men expressed the view that it ought not to be shown, and others that it ought to be shown. But the writer who impressed me most says this : ' I stood at the door of a New York theatre and watched the people coming in, joking and laughing like any other crowd of amusement‑seekers; and three hours
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later I saw them come out, silent and thoughtful, awed and subdued, with a look of wonder and wistful inquiry in their tear‑stained eyes.' The grip of Jesus on the soul of man!

Have you ever thought what a strange thing it is that you can read Shakespeare‑‑or, for that matter, any other poet or dramatist‑and you may be pleased or instructed or repelled? But you read the Gospel of St. Mark and you will be challenged. Have you ever considered the significance of this­that most of the successful books recently published by theological publishers are about Jesus, and supply is caused by demand ? Men are so eager to find Him that pilgrimages to Palestine are more common than ever before in history. Many have had the privilege, which I covet as I covet nothing else, of visiting the Holy Land. They have felt that they could get to know Him better if they could stand by the lake, pray in Gethsemane, kneel on Calvary. They have journeyed north, south, east, and west in that land,

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which nineteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter Cross.

Men and women who are ' outside the Churches' are all held and gripped by Jesus.

It was so in the days of His flesh. A woman whom the Church had passed by as quite impossible­possessed by seven devils, so they said; an utter incarnation of evil, concerning whom the least religious gathered his skirts about him and passed
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on, afraid to be contaminated by her nearness; pretty once, but tarnished now, a degraded thing, a despised thing, belonging only to the dark under­world of life‑is at once gripped by Jesus. He holds her soul a willing captive, and never lets her go. No teacher in the world has ever called a woman like Mary Magdalene except Jesus, but He called her and she came. Here, on the other hand, is Nicodemus, wealthy, respectable, a trained Pharisee, a man of great weight in the counsels of the godly; he too is gripped by Jesus, speaks to Him with utmost reverence, ' I know that Thou art a teacher sent from God.' Here is a Roman officer, a centurion, a man in authority, who has servants under him to carry out his orders, and he prefaces his message to Jesus with the words, ' Sir, I am unworthy that You should come under my roof ; just say the word and my servant will be healed.' Here is Matthew, the publican.

Probably he had a queer past. A Jew had sunk pretty low if he couldn't make a living except by buying a job from Rome and then making it up, and more, by extorting money from his own countrymen. Rightly or wrongly, one's mental picture of Matthew is of a crusty old money‑grubber, rather cynical, covering his inward contempt for himself by an assumed contempt for the world and every one in it. Will he leave his money‑bags and step out into a lif e of adventure and daring ? Jesus said unto him, ' Follow Me,' and he arose and followed Him. The grip of Jesus on the soul of man 1 Even at the last, a thief on the cross next His own, a felon of the worst kind, salutes Jesus as a
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King: 'Remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom.' And the best of all this is, that what was once true of Jesus can be true again.

We sometimes talk about the grip of winter. But a far more appealing thought is that of the grip of spring. The grip of Jesus on the soul of man is like the grip of spring. If you were an almond‑tree, you couldn't live with the spring and not become beautiful; and to watch the change that Jesus made on men's lives must have been like watching the change that spring makes. It must have been like seeing a landscape in the grip of winter, when bitter winds howl through leafless branches, when black frost makes the ground hard and hostile to the feet, when low storm‑clouds make the mountains forbidding and fearful, and the moors bleak and desolate; and then seeing that same landscape with the sun in the sky, the trees in leaf, the birds singing, and flowers blossoming.

Unfortunately, we have a power that the trees of the field have not. We have the power of resist­ing the spring. The late Mr. F. A. Atkins, in a recent article, reminded us that when Olive Schreiner was a little girl she got hold of a copy of the New Testament and began to read it. Before she got past the early chapters of St. Matthew she rushed into her mother's room and said, ' Oh, mummy, look what I've found 1 Isn't it lovely? Now we can all live like this.' With open doors and broken barriers of pride and stubbornness we can live with Jesus, and let His grip of the soul
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make summer come. It isn't what we believe; it isn't the ceremonies we perform ; it isn't a tremendous emphasis on the will i it is to put the emphasis on Him, to let Him have His way with us; just as the emphasis is not upon the tree, but upon the spring which calls to the tree, and calls out from the tree the wonderful powers within it. Don't stop to get your theories right first. Don't make a list of promises. Don't think that you must first be consistent. Don't merely try to be good. Live daily in His presence and the miracle will happen. Spring will come to your life.

Some are putting the matter off, saying, ' I really will begin next week' or, 'First I will put away this sin or that ' ; or, I will try again not to give way' ; or, ' I will get through this exam. and then think about it'; or, ' I will begin next week, and pray for ten minutes each day or, ' I will have more faith' ; or, ' I will read some good books' ; or, ' I will go to Keswick or Swanwick next summer.' These are all good things to do second.

First let Him grip you. And let Him begin with you where you are now. Imagine yourself possessed by Him, and let the emphasis be on Him instead of on you. Of course, it may be that some one feels no sense of need of Him. If so, let him take his cleanest handkerchief on a snowy morning and lay it on his front lawn. For most of us the trouble is the other way. We feel dull, stodgy, sinful, coarse, impure. We can't promise to be different. We feel so black against His white. We have grown old and fatal in habit. The tracks of
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habit are cut deep in our minds. We have given up hope. The glory has departed. The skies are grey. Darkness is setting in. ' It's all right for young folk,' we say wistfully, 'but not for me.'

I Let me say that if we feel like that we are just in the mood when He can do most. ' Jesus had three favourite words,' Dr. George Jackson reminds us ; ' least, last, and lost. And He said the least should be greatest, the last should be first, and the lost should be found.' There is a note running throughout the New Testament, and especially through the Epistle to the Hebrews‑'He is able.' 'Being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.' ' He is able to save to the uttermost.' . . . He is able, He is able, He is able. We have been putting the emphasis in the wrong place, say­ing, 'I will begin again.'

Not what these hands have done
Can save this guilty soul:
Not what this throbbing flesh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.

Thy love to me, 0 God,
Not mine, 0 Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest
And set my spirit free.

Let me no more my comfort draw
From my frail hold on Thee,
Rather in this rejoice with awe­
Thy mighty grasp of me.