3. " What is to hinder this man from governing ? " says Carlyle of the Abbot Samson. " There is in him what far transcends all apprenticeships ; in the man himself there exists a model of governing, something to govern by. He has the living ideal of a governor in him." In like fashion the poet sweeps aside the whole mob of kings so called, David and Solomon and their posterity, who in turn had claimed to sit on the throne of Jehovah. He did not mean that kind of thing at all — a merely titular kingship, which had no promise in it. One day there will be born a King, possessing every gift of rule, born to command the wavering hearts of men; and when He comes the first to acknowledge Him will be God, who will make a place in His universe for Him, and raise Him not to where these spectral majesties have sat, these uneasy phantasms which have flitted across the scene, but to where none ever sat before. " Sit at my right hand."
Thus Christ alone answers fully to the description of the conquering King, who is also " a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." It is He alone who goes forth at the head of an army numberless as the dewdrops of a summer morn, every soldier in it clothed in holy garments, sweeping His enemies before Him, gaining one victory after another until they are all beneath His feet, and His Kingdom stretches from the river unto the ends of the earth.
372 THE BROOK IN THE WAY
4. This King not only sits as partner with the King of kings, but is content to share the lot of the common soldier. The Psalmist writes of " his Lord " at the right hand of Jehovah, that He shall be refreshed along His conquering march, not with the rich wines of Helbon cooled in the snows of Lebanon, but, like any private soldier, from the wayside brook. And He shall need refreshment, having taken His full share of toil. This contrast between a splendid destiny and the simplest life was never so true of any as of Jesus Christ. It is this contrast that moves St. Paul to astonishment in the words, " God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infir- mity, but One who was tempted in all points like as we are — weary, athirst, and faint. For thirty years Jesus lived the frugal and simple life of a carpenter's son in a quiet village among the hills of Galilee. His first recorded temptation was to break His fellowship with us by claiming miraculous supplies, at least of bread ; but this help, which He gave to others, He would not Himself employ. Never once did Jesus use His special powers for Himself to make a difference between His life and ours, or drink of other streams but such as ran by the wayside for all. His first miracle was to make large supplies of wine for a marriage feast ; but, for His own part, He would sit by the wayside fountain, waiting, and would ask a lost woman to bestow on Him a cup of cold water. The fever of His cruel death was alleviated by the vinegar, the sour wine, of the private soldiers beneath His cross. Even after His resurrection, when He had already entered upon that sublime and mysterious life which it is our highest hope to share, He did not scorn to take of the fish which they had drawn from the Lake of Galilee, and, again, even of the cold fish which remained from a former meal.
^ The troops of Charles the Twelfth, in sore distress and half inclined to mutiny, brought him a specimen of their bread, which was hard and sour and black. To their astonishment, the king ate it with a relish, and quietly answered : " It is not good bread, but it can be eaten." There was no more thought of mutiny in that camp ; nor will such a leader ever lack men to follow, to suffer, and to die with him,^
» G. A. Cbadwick, Pilate a Gift, 209.
PSALM ex. 7 373
(1) The Son of God became one with us in talcing our nature. He did not come to the world robed in cloud and fire and storm, and attended by an army of angels. Rather, He did much to conceal His majesty during the time that He lived on earth. He was born a Jew; and the Hebrew nation was "the fewest of all peoples" — not one of the great broad streams of mankind, but as a " brook in the way " ; yet the Lord Jesus drank of that brook. " He took not on him the nature of angels ; but he took on him the seed of Abraham." Without for a moment ceasing to be God, He stooped to become a babe in the manger, a humble and inquiring boy growing up a working carpenter in a country town, then a homeless wayfarer, a rejected religious teacher, and at last a crucified slave.
(2) Our Great Captain at length bowed His head to drink our cup of suffering and sorrow. That bitter cup was put into His hand in the garden of Gethsemane, and He did not refuse to drink it. He did not, as He might have done, use His almighty power to deliver Himself from His enemies. He gave Himself up, a weary and unarmed man, to their wicked will. Out of love for us, and with a view to our redemption, He allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross. And there He was " made a curse for us," bearing our sin and shame and doom.