The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 2 — Section 32

Ver. 4.-The S'Upreme Worker and his opportunity. "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." This, like so many of the memorable sayings of our Lord, is an incidental one, arising out of the circum- stances of the hour. On a sabbath day in autumn-the last autumn of his earthly life -our Lord paused as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem to look at a blind beggar, known to be blind from his birth. The sight was sad enough, but instead of exciting the pity of Jesus' disciples, it seems only to have awakened their speculative curiosity. Taking it for granted, as was usual in their days, that special suffering must needs be a retribution for special sin, they asked their Master the question, " Who was to blame for this man's blindness?" Was he sent eyeless into the world for some fault of his own, or was he suffering for transgressions of his parents? Our Lord put the unwise question aside. Tbe disciples were far from the mark. There was a wider and deeper philosophy of suffering than they were dreaming of, and for the calamity before them there wa.s more than sufficient reason in this, that the man's blindness was now to be the occasion of God's signal mercy. Christ, therefore, refuses to be drawn into any fruitless and bootless discussions regarding the origin of evil either physical or moral. This was not his mission into the world. He had come amongst us to triumph over evil, not to explain it, and so he says to his disciples, "I must work the works of him," etc. No saying of Christ's brings his true manhood more distinctly before us than these words do. Before he could utter them be must have "emptied himself of his glory, and taken upon him the form of a servant." There were times, indeed, in his ministry when he used language which could only become the Son of God, as when he spoke of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. But here he speaks with equal plainness as the Son of man, in all things made like unto his brethren. We can never forget that Christ's mission into the world was unparalleled, even as he stands alone in his relation to the Father. Still, it was in our nature that he accomplished thi.s whole work of bis. He did not seem to be a man, he was "the Man Christ Jesus." These words, therefore, reveal to us the spirit, the motive, the principle, of the only perfect human life that ever was lived, and it is in this respect that they set him forth as our Example. L OuB LOBD BEBE DISTINCTLY ACKNOWLEDGES A WILL HIGHER THAN HIS OWN, and tells us that in laying out his earthly life this will was his guiding star. He had all t_he sensibilities of a sinleBB human being. He not only knew by experience the urgencies of hunger and thirst, and longed for rest from exhausting toil, but be loved congenial society like that of the family of Bethany. How must he have recoiled from the con- tradiction of sinners! How sensitively must he have sbrun\: from contact with vice and squalor! But he allowed not such natural feelings, pure as they were, to reign supreme among his motives, or interfere with his life-work. "Even Christ pleased not himself." "I came down from heaven," he said, "not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." Here, surely, there are great, though simple, lessons for us all. In our daily lives we feel the force of a hundred different motives. We are swayed by our own tastes, by the example and opinions of others, by the force of outward circum- a~ances ; but do we 11e0 rising above all the&<!, and piercing through them, and shedding OD, IX, 1-41.] THI: GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN, 33