THE PRESENCE OF JESUS
IT is a valuable exercise to take some of the wellworn phrases about religion and ask oneself fearlessly what they mean. How many of us pray, 'Be with me, Lord, to‑day'? What do we mean? At the beginning of a day of worship we pray, 'Manifest Thy Presence among us,' or 'Show us Thy face.' What do we expect to happen ?
These questions are important, for nothing kills reality in religion so much as to repeat phrases which have become meaningless, or prayers one has little expectation of being answered, or conceming the mode of answer of which one has only the vaguest kind of idea.
What do we mean by the Presence of Jesus ? Let us think the matter out as well as we may, beginning at the Resurrection.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead has been called the most incredible and yet the most convincing fact in history. Some regard it as an intervention of God in the interests of ' His only begotten Son, begotten of His Father before all worlds,' an act of vindication or justification of the alleged claims of Jesus to be the Son of God. Others regard it as effected by a power of mind over body within the normal activity of any man
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who lived a perfect human life such as, it is claimed, Jesus lived, and whose divinity was won or achieved rather than bestowed; won by His perfect reaction to God on the one hand and to sin on the other. Some think the body of Jesus never left the tomb, but in some way, as yet unknown, evanesced. A consideration of the clothes in the tomb and the clothed figure seen in the garden lends some support to this view, and certainly belief in a physical resurrection is not necessary to faith in the living presence of Jesus now. His physical body matters no more than His clothes. Others think that the body rose from the tomb and disintegrated at the Ascension. It may safely be said that there is no known theory of the Resurrection which solves all our difficulties. Our knowledge has not advanced sufficiently far for any theory to be put forward which accounts for all the phenomena.Yet one great triumphant fact emerges. It is that Jesus survived death, convinced His followers of His survival, and convinced them through their senses. We speak of the unseen presence of Jesus at our worship, but this would never have been sufficient for them. They would have imagined themselves deluded. Therefore, whether in the body or in the spirit, or in some substance for which, as yet, we have no name, they saw One whom they came to know was Himself, and were convinced that He had conquered death and was alive for ever. Humanity would have felt it almost a cruelty on the part of God if that radiant personality, the reality of all our dreams, the consummation of
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manhood, human life as God dreamt it and not as we know it, had moved once over the stage of history and then passed for ever out of the sight of men. But there was mure than a memory. There was a Presence.Between the Resurrection and the Ascension we find Jesus doing a very wonderful thing. His constant appearings and disappearings have a profound significance. I Mary sees some one coming towards her who appears to be a gardener. We can catch the pathos in her voice as, according to St. John, she pleads, ' If thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him and I will take Him away.' Jesus says,' Mary,' and through the tone of His voice as He utters her name she recognizes Him. Through her senses she is made sure. Then come the strange words, so strange that they could not have been invented, ' Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended unto My Father.' Why this cruel prohibition ? Because He is trying to plant His fellowship in the unseen. Having 'got through' to her through one of her senses, He doesn't want her to use more, for He is trying to carry her beyond the need of any. He is saying, in other words, ' You mustn't believe in My presence only when you can touch Me. I want to lead you on to a faith which perceives Me in terms of unseen values. I want to lead you on beyond the need of ear and eye and hand. Don't touch Me, for you will understand this present ministry of Mine when, at My Ascension, I have completed it.'
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So in one of the most beautiful stories in the world we can see two down‑hearted people returning to their village home at Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. A stranger joins them and enters into their conversation. His respect for their personality leads Him not to reveal Himself at the outset. To do this would have smashed the argument they were working out when He joined them, with another and an overwhelming kind of evidence. Rather than thus disable their minds, He enters into their argument. Beginning where they are with facts familiar to themselves, He leads them on step by step from Moses and the Prophets in an argument which they could perfectly follow. Then, when they were ripe for it, He accepts their invitation to supper, and they know Him not even then until by a familiar gesture He reveals Himself. Some of our own friends we would know by some familiar gesture half a mile away. Jesus had a queer way of breaking a loaf when He said grace, and they recognized Him at once. ' He became known to them in the breaking of the loaf.'Then, as soon as they knew Him, He vanished out of their sight. Why? Because He had achieved His purpose for the moment in proving His survival, and now they were ready to be led further. They hurry back to Jerusalem, gather with the eleven, and the doors are shut. There is a presence, the Presence that had meant everything to them, a face, the Face they loved best in the world, a voice more lovely than music, speaking
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the word they had heard so often, 'Peace be unto you.' It was Himself.Supposing before your eyes at this moment the form of Jesus should appear, speak, disappear. Supposing you went off for a meal and He appeared again, joined in the conversation, and disappeared. Suppose He joined you when you were speaking to a friend, and then disappeared. What would happen ? If your Western nerves could stand it, then what would happen would be that you would never know when He wasn't there. You would be watchful for any moment when He might break through. You would never speak to any person or go into any set of circumstances without thinking that He might be there even if you could not see Him. Your world would be full of Him. You would feel with the poet:
Whenever the sun shines brightly I rise and say, 'Surely it is the shining of His face,' And when a shadow falls across the window Of my room Where I am working my appointed task,
I lift my head to watch the door, and ask lf He is come.
And this is what happened to them. Peter would never again walk by Galilee's lake without Jesus, without being consciously sure and certain that Jesus was there. Mary would never go and sit quietly in that garden or any garden without meeting her 'Rabboni.' They would set a place for Him always, I think, at the table at Emmaus,
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and find every meal sanctified and adorned by His presence. Certainly Cleopas would never break a loaf without thought of Him. And that Upper Room which contained His couch, His cushion, His cup, would for ever bring to them a vivid sense of His reality, and for them the whole earth became full of His glory.If this were not all true, then the Ascension would have been one of the saddest events of His ministry. We should read that they watched the Beloved Form disappear, and then turned back with tearfilled eyes, saying to one another, ' Well, it was very beautiful while it lasted, but now we must get on as well as we can without Him.' There was nothing of this kind at all. 'No flowers by request.' Jesus is perhaps the only great man who ever lived concerning whom no one ever wrote any memorial verses. So far from being sad at seeing Him no longer, we may note what the evangelists actually record. Matthew says, 'Lo, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age.' Mark says, 'They went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with thgm.' Luke says, 'They worshipped Him, and returned with great joy to Jerusalem.' Where are the signs of that grief which is inseparable from 'Good‑bye'? There are none. One glorious fact emerges amid all our mental wanderings. He survived death. He proved His survival to His followers through their senses. He then established His continued presence in the world with them without the need of the senses. And they were certain that He was with them to the end.
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Now emerges the question which has a great bearing on our fife to‑day.After the Ascension, when He had taken them beyond the need of vision and voice, how did He manifest His presence to them ? I know that on occasion visions and voices have been granted to the saints since the Ascension. But no universal religion could have as the test of its authenticity a vision, because to see a vision demands a certain kind of psychical make‑up which few Westerners possess. Moreover, to many natures such evidences are uncanny and disturbing, and one of the first demands in religious experience is that its experiences shall build up the personality, not tend to disintegrate it or scare it.
How, then, was His presence manifested to them after He had carried them beyond the need of vision and voice? I suggest that it was manifested in four ways : an inward reinforcement of the personality, a transcendent happiness, a deep serenity, and an outgoing love; and that these things are still the marks of the Presence. Let us consider them.
(1) An inward reinforcement of the personality. I mean by this an inward strengthening which made a man feel that he could face any situation that might arise, certain of coming out on top, certain that nothing could happen which had any power to down his spirit. It was in no sense an escape from the things other people had to face, but a new power to face them ; not consciously two to face them, but rather one in whom a new and
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superrational force had been released, so that one great soul cried out, 'I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me.'(2) A transcendent happiness ; a kind of infectious gaiety of spirit which others caught from those who knew His presence in their hearts. They were alive as others were not alive. To look round the faces of men and women, even in Christian congregations, sometimes gives one the impression that nothing could be caught from them except the dumps! Surely one of the marks of the man who knows Christ's presence is the possession of a great joy that shines through the eyes and radiates from the entire personality, advertising the nature of religion better than any words.
Not merely in the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confessed.
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.Is it a beatific smile ?
A holy light upon your brow ?
Oh, no f I felt His presence while
You laughed just now.For me 'twas not the truth you taught,
To you so clear, to me so dim,
But when you came to me you brought
A sense of Him.And from your eyes He beckons me,
And from your heart His love is shed
Till I lose sight of you‑and see
The Christ instead.
(3) A deep serenity of spirit. What is more
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needed in these days of hectic rush than that inward peace, the only thing Christ left in His will, I and which is one of the marks of the Presence ? It did not and does not mean that a man's diary is not full. It means that though his diary is full his heart is quiet. There is an inward serenity which nothing can break, an inward hush that nothing disturbs. Some folk have this secret. They do not appear to be busy and they are never rushed. They go to each task quietly and steadily and refuse to be hectic or worried. They preserve a space of silence round the soul.
In the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky,
And flinging the clouds and the towers by,
Is a place of central calm.
So here in the rush of earthly things,
There is a place where the spirit sings,
In the hollow of God's palm.
(4) An outgoing love. The presence of Jesus meant, and means, a love that goes out to all men, to our critics and enemies, not merely loving the lovable, not‑only seeing what is lovable, but, seeking no reward, a love which is creative enough to make something lovable in all men; a love which changes coldness, bitterness, and cynicism into warmth and sweetness and radiance.So, in the first century, were men thus possessed by Jesus, living always in His presence. They were masters of life, captains of their souls. They made an impression of power and serenity on all who came near. They seemed free from worry, from
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fear, from meanness and pettiness. They had exchanged poverty of life for all the riches of J~sus Christ. Compared with them other lives seemed poor, bewildered, frightened, hectic, bleak, and dead. Yet the reason was apparent to those who watched. 'They had been with Jesus.'It was not, I think, that His presence meant to them escape from those ills which assail all men. It was rather an inward strength and fortitude which led them to keep a quiet heart and clear eye, and an unbroken trust that God could bring them through to victory, and make even the temporary triumphs of evil to serve both Him and them. Thus the things which assail others assailed them, but because of their inner resources the result of those evils upon their natures and characters was altered. Not by escape from these things, but in all these things they were more than conquerors through Him that loved them and indwelt them.
This is the lesson many of us have still to learn. From the Old Testament we have taken over what is quite frankly a false picture of God. The Psalmists were wonderful poets to whom the whole world will be in debt forever; but they had not seen God in Jesus, and therefore some of their pictures of God are not true. They spoke and wrote and thought much of God as a high tower, a rock, a fortress, a refuge, a defence, a shield. They tried to shelter under the shadow of His wings and in the secret place of the Most High.
Of course, there is much in this aspect of God that is true. God is a Father, and if He can save
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His children from what we call calamity He will do so, but not at the price of their education, and not if it conflicts with eternal principles, and not if the well‑being of His other children is affected. I knew a dear old saint in Aldershot in the early days of the war. His son was fighting in France. At our prayer meetings he would earnestly pray that God would hide that soldier son beneath His wings. He added with deep tenderness, 'The bullet was never made that can pierce Thy wings.' But the boy was killed all the same.Now Jesus never said or implied that religion was an insurance from catastrophe., If it were, we should be bribed to be good. Life would lose its power to educate us. Jesus never said or implied to His followers that His presence would mean immunity from disaster, nor does He promise this to us. He does not say, 'My presence means that your life will be spared till old age; that whoever starves, you will not; that though disease brings suffering to the dear ones of others, yours will always be safe; that though death carries off men and women on your right and left, it will leave your loved ones untouched.' Indeed, He rather implies the opposite., To His own men He said that not only would ordinary dangers assail them, but that other horrors would be added just because they
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were His. ' Men will hand you over to suffer affliction and they will kill you; you will be hated by all the Gentiles on account of My name' (Matt. xxiv. 9). ' Men will hand you over to Sanhedrins and you will be flogged in synagogues, and brought before governors and kings for My name's sake ' (Mark xiii. 9). It was to be persecution, even from city to city. It was to be dissension in the very family (Matt. x. 35). It might be the horrors of violent death. Apparently, even in heaven He never implied that His presence would save them from tears. Many tears may be shed before we are purged sufficiently to look into the face of God. Can a mother in heaven be free from sorrow if her son is in hell on earth ? What John, who knew his Master, does say we shall one day know to be an infinitely greater truth. What John implies about the tears of heaven is that God will wipe them away. And what Jesus surely teaches about the woes of earth is that there will be two to bear them, and so transmute them, change their nature and their effect on personality, and make them sacramental. Jesus does not say, ' I will deliver you from the waters,' but something infinitely greater‑' When you pass through the waters I shall be there too.'One could not but be moved by the story of the soldier who asked his officer if he might go out into the ' No man's land ' between the trenches to bring in one of his comrades who lay grievously wounded. ' You can go,' said the officer, ' but it's not worth it. Your friend is probably killed, and you will throw
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your own life away.' But the man went. Somehow he managed to get to his friend, hoist him on to his shoulder, and bring him back to the trenches. The two of them tumbled together and lay in the trenchbottom. The officer looked very tenderly on the would‑be rescuer, and then he said, ' I told you it wouldn't be worth it. Your friend is dead and you are mortally wounded.' ' It was worth it though, sir.' ' How do you mean, " worth it " ? I tell you, your friend is dead.' ' Yes, sir,' the boy answered, ' but it was worth it, because when I got to him he said, " I knew you'd come." 'Immunity from disaster is not the greatest thing in life, as one day we shall understand. The greatest thing is to wring triumph from disaster. What happens to us does not really matter; what matters is our reaction to the things that befall us. The presence of Jesus means an alchemy that changes the nature and effects of disaster till even a disaster becomes a sacrament; and a cross of bloodstained wood, the symbol of uttermost catastrophe and shame, not intentioned by God but by the evil wills of men, becomes the cross of shining gold, the symbol of triumph and hope that brings a new light into the sorrowing eyes and hearts of all the world.
We shall find, then, that the presence of Jesus is the answer to all our prayers. In loneliness we shall find the Friend of Friends with us. In temptatiOD wo sliall be made strong. In sorrow His presence is comfort. in joy it is sanctification. His presence can make even pain into a sacrament. In bewilderment it is an anchorage. In darkness it is
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all the light, we need. When we have lost all hope, all belief in ourselves, His presence means that we begin to believe in ourselves again because He believes in us, and when what is called the last distress of man assails us, when our last heart‑beats tap at the door of eternity, then the other world shines out in a radiant loveliness because above all it means His presence, and in His presence is the fullness of joy.Yet it would not do for us to seek His presence only in the hour of trouble. We should feel ashamed to do so. ' I haven't prayed since I was a kid,' said a soldier at the Front. ' I'm not going to pray now just because I'm in a funk.' But shame is not the only thing that would hold us back. The presence of Jesus is not a thing to be entered into, with any great sense of reality, without practice. And, if we have walked without conscious communion with Him for long stretches of life, we shall not only be shy of seeking Him just because we are in trouble, but it will not be too easy to fulfil the conditions or to realize the marks of the Presence.
Indeed, we should do well to listen to the critic who says to us, ' Do you realize what you are claiming when you talk of the presence of Jesus? How can you prove to me that He is findable at all?' And we must not answer the question too glibly, for we are claiming an immense thing. The claims of the Spiritualist, for instance, are nothing compared with our claim. The Spiritualist will tell us that, if we go quietly into a dark room with, perhaps, a red light burning, we may, through a medium, get
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into touch with a medium on the other side, and that that medium may get into touch with someone who died fairly recently, and so we may get through. One hardly wonders that, with so many exchanges to get through, the message often seems confused! But what does the Christian claim? He claims that he, John Smith, can, in broad daylight, directly, and on normal levels of the mind, get into immediate communion with the Eternal Christ who walked and talked, laughed and wept, worked and slept in Galilee two thousand years ago. It is a stupendous claim. No wonder that the faith even of the Christian sometimes fails. No wonder he sometimes asks, ' Can He really speak to me ? Is it really Himself ? ' For the gulf between our hurrying, hectic streets and the Voice that spoke in the woods and fields of Galilee so long ago seems sometimes greater than faith can span, greater than desire can bear.I should like, therefore, to try and answer the questions ' Is He findable ? ' and 'How do you know that a certain experience has no other explanation ? How do you know it is He? '
Once men accept the fact of the Resurrectionthat Jesus survived death and manifested His presence to His disciples‑there seems no logical reason why He should not go on manifesting His presence all through the world's remaining history. And surely we need not spend much time in 9 proving ' the Resurrection, since the existence of the Church at all can only be accounted for by supposing that Christ proved His survival after
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death. The Resurrectlon, however we try to explain it, turned abject terror into flaming courage, and cowards into heroes and martyrs. It 'drove cringing men to go shouting a message to audiences as derisive as ourselves, a message punished with stripes, crosses and red‑jowled beasts, yet persisting indomitable on and on down the echoing centuries, until the pagan world was conquered by a handful of Jewish fishermen and a great Church raised its pinnacles to heaven to enshrine that message flung to the wind on the first Pentecost‑" a dead man has become alive."We have seen now that Jesus manifested His presence at first through the senses, and later without the need of sense‑impressions, and that He did this so completely that after the Ascension they were just as certain of Him as when they' saw' Him. At what point, then, in history did He cease so to manifest Himself? There is no answer. The claim that He is not findable has no basis in history and makes nonsense of the claimed experience of some of the greatest souls the world has ever seen.
But how do we know this is Himself? I think the only answer is that we know it is He just because none other has the same effect on our personality. The nearness of Jesus means that men hate sin with a new hatted ; that, so far from being critical, they want to kneel; that, hating what is base within themselves, they are not driven into inferiority, as they are in the case of the imagined presence of any other great historical figure. They are delivered
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from the kingdom of self into a new kingdom of creative values, in which, just because they forget themselves entirely, they really express themselves perfectly. Men are even delivered from their I principles ' and resolutions and pledges. They no longer need the railings they have put up at the side of the road to keep themselves on it. They find themselves pushing the railings over. They are on the moors, laughing, running, throwing up their hats. Life has suddenly become free and intoxicating. They know the glory of the liberty of the sons of God. They know what Augustine meant when he said, 'Love God and do what you like.' They are delivered from all the country of selfhood into the country of otherness, and they are as impatient of railings as a man who is in love with his wife would be impatient of written promises and pledges that he would stand by her for ever.It is strange that the presence of Jesus has such a different effect on men from that of the presence of others. St. Paul would make men feel cowards. Grenfell and Schweitzer would make most of us feel babies. Wordsworth makes one feel coarse and dull. Lincoln makes one feel impatient and tactless. The real scholar makes one feel an ignoramus. The real saint makes one feel a sinner. But the presence of Jesus makes one feel utterly humbled and yet utterly exalted. He makes one feel one'could do and be anything.
I suppose it is all the difference between a human personality outside myself, with whom I compare myself to my own disadvantage, and a Divine
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Personality capable of dwelling within and expressing Himself through me. 1 1 wonder if that is not why Pentecost, as Dr. Stanley Jones has suggested, meant even more to the disciples than Easter. At Easter He was a Companion by their side. At Pentecost He was an indwelling Power.The questions, then : ' Is He findable ? ' and ' How do we know it is He?' give place to a more insistent one: ' How are we to realize that Presence? '
Many people have given up praying, not because they are spiritually dead, but because they are, above all things, sincere, and praying seems a barren business. As one man put it to me lately, ' It seems like talking to nothing, like arguing with yourself on your knees.' So at last they have given it up because it seems a farce. They feel there is no one there.
Let us try to help by asking them what they really expect to happen. Many half expect a vision or a voice, or, at any rate, an emotion. They expect to feel what I call 'Sunday nightish,' a surging wave of
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emotion. For most there is the curse of wandering thoughts. They are no sooner on their knees beginning to pray, than their mind is off on a fresh track. ' I mustn't forget to write to so and so,' or, ' I think I'll wear pink at the garden‑party '; and their prayertime is taken up with hauling their mind back to the business in hand, until, tired of this fruitless business, they accept the powerful suggestion of the bed, at which probably they kneel, and climb into it.There are ways of outwitting the mind in this matter. One is to hold ourselves in the silence and think of some definite element in the character of God, working out for and in ourselves all its implications. Another is to steady the mind by praying the prayers of others (not merely reading appreciatively), or by writing out one's prayers, by dropping into a church for ten minutes on the way home from business, by imagining oneself present at the recorded acts of Jesus in the Gospels, or by reading aloud slowly some of the great hymns.
But I am convinced that one reason we fail to appreciate the presence of Jesus is that we do not recognize the marks of the Presence. Let us think for a moment of the poet. He speaks sometimes of wooing the Muse, of trying to apprehend and be possessed by the presence of that spirit of poetry which alone makes possible the inspired poem. Yet no poet who has ever lived could go into a room and say, ' Go to, I will now write an inspired poem.' What does he do? He writes something that is not quite poetry. He reads poetry. He studies his masters. He meditates on this theme and on that.
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Yet it is probably true to say that by these means he is really becoming the true poet more than in those moments of insight when he is nearly carried off his‑ feet by the sweep of inspiration through every fibre of his brain, through every nerve of his body.So I would not pretend that you can go to your room or church, least of all hurl yourself at the side of your bed at a moment when body and mind are both tired, and then ' realize the presence of Jesus.' What are you to do ? You are resolutely to push back the tumultuous demands of the things you have to do, and, using one of the methods I have mentioned, you can at least spread the sail for the wind that bloweth where it listeth. And what if the wind does not blow ? It is my view that the presence of Jesus is nevertheless working within you‑not dissimilarly from the way I have imagined the Muse working on the poet's mind at uninspired moments‑but working at such a depth of your personality that you cannot distinguish between Himself and yourself ; yet most assuredly working, and changing your reactions to life, so that to‑morrow that irritable customer, that difficult situation, that crushing calamity, that sudden demand, that fit of depression, that temptation to sulk or to act meanly or to think impurely, will be faced and met in an entirely different manner from what would have been possible if you had not practised the presence of Him who alters our reactions to all things. In a word, there will be an inward reinforcement of the personality, a gaiety of spirit, a serenity of
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heart, and an outgoing love which are manifestations of the presence of Jesus.As Gerald Gould sings:
He found my house upon the hill,
I made the bed and swept the floor.
And laboured solitary, till
He entered at the open door.He sat with me to break my fast,
He blessed the bread and poured the wine,
And spoke such friendly words, at last
I knew not were they His or mine;But only, when He rose and went
And left the twilight in the door,
I found my hands were more content
To make a bed and sweep the floor.
Most people in these days of popular psychology realize that the human personality is made up of thought, feeling, and will. If after our discipline we find next day that a thought comes to us that is high and lofty, or a feeling‑not an emotional storm only‑but a feeling of love and affection for men and women, which includes our critics and enemies, or a new strength to the will which makes us put self second, let us recognize these things as the marks of His presence, for these they surely are. No one can do these mighty things within us but He. Perhaps this is what Paul meant when, unable quite to distinguish between what was Paul and what was Jesus within him, he could say, 'I live, and yet no longer 1, but Christ liveth in me.'But there is another way also. George Macdonald
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has a very wonderful hymn, in which these words occur:
Whatever stirs my heart and mind Thy presence is, my Lord.
Material things can mediate the presence of Jesus if we will train ourselves to let them. We are accustomed to this in the bread of the sacrament. It mediates the presence of Christ. But with a little training a thousand things would serve to bring us into His presence.The law of the association of ideas, which is the very law which accounts for the way our mind wanders from one thing to another, can be so harnessed that almost everything that stirs heart and mind can open up a mental avenue that ends in the presence of Christ.
The ancients found nature leading them to the gods, and science, which has done such mighty services to mankind, must not be allowed to rob us of the divine suggestiveness of ordinary things. To the Norse the clouds were spun by Freya's fingers and thunder was the sound of Thor's hammer. To the Greek the rim of the sun above the horizon was Apollo's chariot wheel and the lightning was Jove's anger. The coming of spring was the return of Persephone ; and so on. At any rate, natural phenomena opened up mental processes that took those who witnessed them to the gods. In the case of the Jew this was even more true. Stars to him were not suns burning in space. They were primarily signs of God's power. Mountains were not evidence of glacial periods or volcanic
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upheaval, but of the strength of God. NAlhatever stirred heart and mind reminded him of God.In Jesus' mind all mental paths led to God. Every idea was connected up with an associative system with God as centre. When His eye fell on yoke or plough or candle or leaven or birds or lilies or mustard seed or a coin from a necklace or a sheep or a father with his boys, He thought at once of God and God's dealings with men. Ordinary things opened mental pathways which led to the presence of God. Our mind, left alone, runs away from God. His mind ran to God. All mental processes in Him were Godward.
One supposes that for Christ's followers the same thing would happen. Would any of them wash his feet again without being reminded of the presence of Jesus? Would any of them light a lamp again, mend a garment, sow a field, or put wine in a bottle without being mentally wakened to a sense of His presence ?
We, who have found this in bread and wine and in the symbol of the Cross, must enlarge our number of symbols that remind us of Him; when you drink water, of His life ; when you eat bread, of the Bread of Life ; when you bathe, of His cleansing grace and forgiving love. One man told me that he formed the habit of thinking of Christ when he walked down a certain street on the way to work, and now if, contrary to custom, he had any occasion whatever to go down this street, he could not but think of Jesus and walk down the street with Him. Even if he walked down the street with a friend a
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hush fell upon him and he wanted one conversation to cease and another to begin.We can make a start with the lovely things‑of nature‑the hush of dawn, the splendour of sunset, the silent majesty of the stars, the sleeping strength of the hills, the song of birds, the moan of the sea, can become the voice of Christ, as St. John found when, exiled on Patmos, he listened to the waves murmuring on the beach, and the sound became to him the voice of Jesus calling, calling, calling. You can see John in the gloarning, walking on the beach at Patmos, in devotional meditation and afterwards, with a far‑away look in his eyes, writing the sentence, ' His voice is like the sound of many waters.'
A modem poet, Joseph Mary Plunkett, has given us the same idea in verses, which may seem extravagantly beyond us at present, but may become our blessed experience. For this poet every lovely thing that wakens heart and mind reminds of Jesus and leads to His presence.
I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see His face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice nd carven by His power
Rocks are His written words.
All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever‑beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.
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Gradually, if we will pursue this discipline of the mind, all things will lead us to His presence, to that sense of inward strengthening, gaiety, serenity and love which signifies that He dwells within; and we shall be able to say with Brother Lawrence, 'The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer ; and in the noise and clatter of Pay kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.' Or like the Indian boy, of whom Mr. Findlay told, we shall be so aware of the presence of Jesus that nothing can drive that awareness away, and in our very games we shall know Him near. This little Indian fellow kicked a ball magnificently down the field towards the enemy's goal, and cried out with a spontaneity that revealed how well he experienced the presence of Jesus, ' Parum, Yesuswarni, parum!' which is, being interpreted, ' Look, Lord Jesus, look!'Such an experience as the realization of the Presence opens up to us is, of course, the changing of our whole fife, filling its dustiest comer with light and gladness. The monotony of business or what has been called domestic drudgery is entirely changed. And working for the tiresome and tyrannical 'boss' is altered, for one is working for Him and for His approval and in His presence.
There is another way of realizing the Presence, for those who have any gift of imagination. Many of us would do well to go back and begin where little children dwell. That lovely little white‑robed
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thing that flings her arms around your neck and says her evening prayer; how does she realize the Presence ? She imagines a white‑robed Figure, perhaps in Eastern dress, with kind eyes and hand outstretched upon her golden hair. Imagination ? Yes, but an imagination that will grow up into faith. Imagination is only the name of one of the doors into the presence of Jesus.It may be thought by some that to use the imagination to realize the presence of Jesus is unreal and unscientific. It cannot be said too often that the imagination is not only a faculty useful in making a picture of something that isn't there, but also of something or some one that is there, but who cannot be seen. And if it is scientific for me to use the faculty of sight to realize the presence of some one who is seen, why is it unscientific to use the faculty of the imagination, which is just as reputable and reliable a faculty, to realize the presence of some one who is unseen ? After all, the test is in experience. If my subsequent experience, gives the lie to my conclusions, then I may say either of sight or imagination that in spite of them I was deceived. In this way science uses imagination every day, and has always done so to formulate her theories and grope towards realities. A man sees an apple fall. He forthwith imagines a theory. He tests the theory in experience. Experience confirms his theory. The hypothesis works. It is called a law, and remains a law until and unless it is modified by subsequently observed or discovered phenomena. Thousands have
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imagined a Presence, tested it in experience, found that something marvellous and transforming has happened to them, that very same ' something' which happened to men who were transformed by the presence of Jesus when He moved and taught in Galilee. Who shall say it is not that same Presence in its essentials ? Who shall claim that this is any more unscientific in religion than in science ?So, for instance, one woman told a friend of mine that she imagined a white mist enfolding her, wrapping her round, bringing her a sense of rest and ineffable peace and contentment. This imaginative experience, which seems to have something reminiscent of the Transfiguration about it, had brought to her, times without number, a sense of the Presence almost overwhelming in its awe and solemnity.
Another, with a famous picture in mind, imagined himself in a great cathedral, kneeling in the gloom at the back and Christ laying His hand on his shoulder. It does not matter how you think of Him; but remember that His presence meant just everything to His followers. In the days of His flesh it transformed them. And after He had passed through the body beyond their sight it was the certainty of His presence that sustained them, comforted them, and through every peril of mind and body upheld them. Do not put away the idea of this Presence as meant only for those of a certain temperament. An experience impossible to some on account of their temperament
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could not be regarded as central in a religion claimed as universal.Do not, on the other hand, try to press your experience into another's mould, and either deceive yourself or discredit the validity of your own experience because it is not like that of another. Find your own medium, but at all costs practise the presence of Jesus.
One objection must be met. Some men say, Jesus lived nearly two thousand years ago in a faroff land, in an age different from ours and among problems different from ours. There is a gulf of time and distance between us and Him. Isn't it rather fanciful to ask us to realize the presence of One who died two thousand years ago ? '
Yes, if He were an ordinary person, but the first pages of this chapter suggest that He was not ., that in virtue of the power of God, uniquely manifested through Him, He was able to manifest His presence after death ; and that, unless the greatest saints and noblest minds of history were victims of some neurotic disease, He has manifested Himself to men ever since; and we may ask whether the results He still achieves in human character could be reached apart from the presence of the only One in all history who has so changed the hearts of men.
The impressive thing about Him is that He seems so near to every century, as though life moved in a circle of which He is the centre, or, better, moved along a course at the goal of which He stands. Luther, Augustine, even Wesley, seem to be
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separated from us by the years; to understand them we need to understand their historic background. But we do not in the same way need to leap out of our century into first‑century Palestine in order to understand Jesus. Even when He is preached to those with no cultural background He seems to break through conditions of time and space and be not a first‑century, Palestinian Jew, but a present Reality, the Reality of the dreams of men through all ages and on all shores.And this is because He is not a partial revelation of God, marred by accident of birth or place, but the whole revelation of God with the corresponding divine significance for every age and place, for every man and woman. In Him all the possibilities of all men are harmoniously realized.
And as to problems, it is significant to notice that, in whatever phase of human life there is real progress toward the solution of problems, it is progress toward the solution implicit in His life and teaching. The modern teacher of geometry may draw on his blackboard a very much more complicated figure than ever Euclid knew. But the solution of the problem which that figure represents depends on principles which Euclid solved with simpler figures, and the solution is valid though Euclid lived centuries ago. The problems of life are more complicated than they were in Jesus' day. This may be conceded. But their solution depends on principles which Jesus enunciated and tried out and proved in His simpler days. He solved the problems of life on which the solution of every problem depends.
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And His solution is as valid in His sphere as are those of Euclid in his.Let me close with one other imaginative picture which has meant much to me since I first read of it. I think it is to be ascribed to the genius of Dr. H. R. L. Sheppard, though I have taken the liberty of altering and enlarging it. Its purpose is to bring you that sense of the presence of Jesus which the writer regards as the central experience of the Christian.
It is evening. The Sea of Galilee lies before your eyes. In the west the splendid scarlets and golds have faded. It is the moment of daffodil and pale green sky. To your left, mountains run down steeply to the sea. Jesus is climbing up a spur of one of these mountains, seeking quietude in the bosom of the hills and in the hush of night ; seeking to push back the tumultuous demands of all there is to do, to make a silence in which the soul can breathe, to pray. You can see His figure outlined for a moment against the fading light of that last glow of evening. But, in the east, clouds have gathered ; clouds that mean storm. Rank upon rank, battalion upon battalion, they sweep westward. The water of the lake turns from amber to steel. The wind that went to summon the storm returns in front of it, majestically heralding its advent. It strikes chill and cold, menacing almost. Then the swish of the rain. Jesus hears it long before it reaches Him. He sees in front of Him a shepherd's hut on the hillside. He makes for it to avoid the discomfort of a soaking, lights the simple lamp He finds within, and kneels to pray.
Now imagine that you are on the mountain, too The storm is on you. You see P. light shining from the window of the hut. Panting and dishevelled, you rush up to it, seeking shelter. Glancing through the window, you see who is there, and you turn away. Shelter or no shelter, you feel you cannot intrude on His seclusion. But He has heard you. He rises, flings open the door. For very you there is His smile, His word of welcome. Then the door closes. just you and Jesus. Jesus and you.
I will not try to imagine what He would say to you. It would be presumptuous to do that. I don't know you. I know, I think, sQme of the things He would have to say to me. But you know your self a little bit. And you know some of the things
He would say to you. But if He said nothing, His presence would say everything. I think at first you would lift your eyes to Hi 's. Then somehow I think you would drop them. It is hard to look into eyes that search the uttermost depths of the heart, eyes that can see that inward rottenness, that furtive secret you have guarded from the world so long.
Yet, if it be hard to look at Him, it is harder not to look at Him. After a while you would look again into those dark, clear, steady, quiet eyes, and find them not only searching but shining; shining, not with any light regard for sin, but with a compassion that goes below the sin to the pure desire beneath.
And in eyes that are the homes of all your dreams you would see the answer to all your prayers. You would know that He believed in you. A tremendous confidence would drive away all your fears and
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possess your whole being. Just because you could never belie a faith in you like His, a new faith in yourself would be born forthwith, and you would know yourlself to be 'able for anything.'Now the storm has passed. It is long after mid‑night, night, but you do not care. He sees you a little way on your path homewards. Then He turns back to pray. You have half a thought to go back with Him. The thought of parting seems for a moment more than you can bear. Then you feel that you never can really be parted from Him, though He goes His way and you yours unto the end of the earth. Something marvellous has happened. He is still with you. He hasn't gone back after all. He is dwelling within you. There has been a new birth. He will express Himself through YOU. It is as though your heart has become the hut; as though you had gained Him for ever. Something mystical has happened for which there are no words. You are not just 'you' any longer. You have become a self whose highest joy and truest life it will for ever be to express Jesus, and bring to others the wealth and beauty He has brought to you.
The wind is hushed now. A crescent moon sails quietly through the last racks of storm‑cloud. Here and there a star.
One long, low, fading belt of light on the distant horizon. You stride back to your job again on feet that scarcely touch the mountain turf; back to a life that can never, never be the same again. For in your heart there is an inward strength, an exultant radiance, a sense of complete well‑being, an outgoing love, and an ineffable peace. They
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do not belong to this world, and nothing in this world can destroy them.'Ah,' you say, 'but this is imagination.' The hut, the light, the mountain, yes. But not the Presence. Unless the New Testament is a lie then this experience is for you. Perhaps it will mean a discipline, but look and listen and you will see and hear. 'Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.' Will you close this book and think quietly of Him? He is nearer to you than any figure of speech can describe. He will receive you. He will understand you. He will know what to do with you. He will tell youwhere to begin now. And you will go back to a life that has become quite different because you have been with Jesus. You will find Him everywhere, both within and without. And for you the whole earth will be full of His glory.