I.
Jesus was a Workman.
The word translated " carpenter " is a more generic term than our English word. It conveys something more than the specific handicraft designated by the latter, and implies gener-
150 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
ally a fashioner of articles in wood. Jesus the carpenter was a maker of all such utensils as were useful in the house and in the field. Justin Martyr, who lived near to Christ's own times, tells us that He made ploughs and yokes, as well as the articles we include within the scope of carpentry. He was the fashioner of whatever tended to stability, order, and productiveness. Surely we may see something more than an accidental significance and appropriateness here ! His calling was the symbol of the constructive and productive, as opposed to the destructive, principle in the world.
That Jesus, before He began His prophetic career, occupied the lowly state of a carpenter, is of universal, permanent, and, one may add, ever-increasing significance as a symbolic revela- tion of the genius of the Christian religion. It is by no means a merely outward, indifferent fact, too trivial for mention in even the fullest account of the life of so great a Personage. It has distinct and great ethical value, both as a biographical fact, and as a means of propagating Christian faith. How much that humble, yet not ignoble, occupation signifies as an element in the education of Jesus ! What possibilities it provided of keen insight into the heart of human life, and what protection it afforded against the unrealities and insincerities attaching to more favoured social conditions ! ^
^ There is a beautiful tradition, that Joseph, His reputed father, died while Jesus was yet a child, and so He worked, not merely to earn His own living, but to keep the little home to- gether in Nazareth, and Mary and the younger members of the family depended upon His toil. That is a beautiful tradition. It may be true, but I do not press it. But this one fact is of utmost importance — He worked for His living. Oh ! that we may derive the strength and comfort from this fact which it is calculated to afibrd. Business men, you who have been at work all the week, and have been harassed by daily labours, and are weary and tired, and seeking for new inspiration, this Jesus, whose name has become a name of sweetness and love, was not a king upon a throne; He was not for the better part of His life a teacher, with the thrill and excitement of public life to buoy Him up. No; the long years ran on, and He was doing what some of yon speak of as "the daily round, the common task." 2
' A. B. Bruoe. ' G. Campbell Morgan.
ST. MARK 151
1. Jesus, as a workman, is brought into sympathetic relations with the masses of manJcind. — His gracious purpose, when He came to earth, was to fathom all the depths of poor humanity, that He might sympathise and succour to the uttermost. Not to be the Eedeemer only, but also the Brother and Friend of man, was the mission of the Son of God. Now, where can a more impressive instance of this be found — a clearer proof that Jesus did actually make Himself like unto His brothers — than when we are told, as in the text, that He became a carpenter ? Here He is seen not merely " in fashion as a man," but passing down to man's most tried and toilsome state, that, proving that, He might implicitly experience every other.
He who said, " Be not anxious for the morrow," often needed to trust His heavenly Father for the morrow's bread. As in the wilderness, when ready to perish of hunger, so in the pre- carious position of a village tradesman, Jesus wrought no miracle to provide bread, or to relieve His own mind, for His first miracle was that in Cana of Galilee. Condescending from the throne of universal providence to live a life of faith for our sakes, the Son trusted the Father before He stood up to preach, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."
^ Probably all of Jesus' apostles were manual labourers except Matthew. We are told expressly that Paul, the greatest of them all, earned his living by working with his hands. Again and again in his letters Paul calls attention to the fact that he has earned his own living by manual labour. Nor was he ashamed of it. He seems to have been proud of his hands because the haircloth had blackened them and the thread had left its marks on them. Listen to him as he says to the elders of Ephesus, who met him down on the sea coast at Miletus : " Ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me." The sight of his hands drew them to him, and made them love him all the more. After he had prayed with them they fell on his neck and kissed him — strong men sobbing because they were to see his face no more. These are two facts, then, never to be forgotten, that Jesus, the founder of the Christian religion, was a manual labourer, and the pierced hands into which He will gather the lives of nations and men are hands that have been disciplined by toil Paul, the apostle, who did more for Christianity than