"He fought his doubts and gathered strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them;--thus he came, at length,
"To find a stronger faith his own, And Power was with him in the night, Which makes the darkness and the light, And dwells not in the light alone." TENNYSON.
John's Misgivings--Disappointed Hopes--Signs of the Christ--The Discipline of Patience--A New Beatitude
It is very touching to remark the tenacity with which some few of John's disciples clung to their great leader. The majority had dispersed: some to their homes; some to follow Jesus. Only a handful lingered still, not alienated by the storm of hate which had broken on their master, but drawn nearer, with the unfaltering loyalty of unchangeable affection. They could not forget what he had been to them--that he had first called them to the reality of living; that he had taught them to pray; that he had led them to the Christ: and they dare not desert him now, in the dark sad days of his imprisonment and sorrow.
What an inestimable blessing to have friends like this, who will not leave our side when the crowd ebbs, but draw closer as the shadows darken over our path, and the prison damp wraps its chill mantle about us! To be loved like that is earth's deepest bliss! These heroic souls risked all the peril that might accrue to themselves from this identification with their master; they did not hesitate to come to his cell with tidings of the great outer world, and specially of what He was doing and saying, whose life was so mysteriously bound up with his own. "The disciples of John told him of all these things" (Luke vii. 18, R.V.).
It was to two of these choice and steadfast friends that John confided the question which had long been forming within his soul, and forcing itself to the front. "And John, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to the Lord, saying, Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?"
I. JOHN'S MISGIVINGS.--Can this be he who, but a few months ago, had stood in his rock-hewn pulpit, in radiant certainty? The brilliant eastern sunlight that bathed his figure, as he stood erect amid the thronging crowds, was the emblem and symbol of the light that filled his soul. No misgiving crossed it. He pointed to Christ with unfaltering certitude, saying, This is He, the Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, the Bridegroom of the soul. How great the contrast between that and this sorrowful cry, "Art Thou He?"
Some commentators, to save his credit, have supposed that the embassy was sent to the Lord for the sake of the disciples, that their hearts might be opened, their faith confirmed--and that they might have a head and leader when he was gone. But the narrative has to be greatly strained and dragged out of its obvious course to make it cover the necessities of such an hypothesis. It is more natural to think that John the Baptist was for a brief spell under a cloud, involved in doubt, tempted to let go the confidence that had brought him such ecstatic joy when he first saw the Dove descending and abiding.
The Bible does not scruple to tell us of the failures of its noblest children: of Abram, thinking that the Egyptians would take his life; of Elijah, stretching himself beneath the shadow of the desert bush, and asking that he might die; of Thomas, who had been prepared to die with his Lord, but could not believe that He was risen. And in this the Spirit of God has rendered us untold service, because we learn that the material out of which He made the greatest saints was flesh and blood like ourselves; and that it was by Divine grace, manifested very conspicuously towards them, that they became what they were. If only the ladder rests on the low earth, where we live and move and have our being, there is some hope of our climbing to stand with others who have ascended its successive rungs and reached the starry heights. Yes, let us believe that, for some days at least, John's mind was overcast, his faith lost its foothold, and he seemed to be falling into bottomless depths. _He sent them to Jesus, saying, Art Thou He that should come_? We can easily trace this lapse of faith to three sources.