Types of the Christian Life

1911

By Dr. Hugh T. Kerr, Chicago

TEXT — Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. — John 11:5.

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Jesus loved them all. Yet he loved each of them. Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Each of them has a place in his heart. Yet they are so different. Jesus does not ask for monotony, but variety in his kingdom. The kingdom of grace is like the kingdom of nature. No two varieties are alike. In my Father's house are many mansions. One family, but many members. One home, but many hearts.

That was the revelation of God's character in the Old Testament. He was the father of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. How different they were. Abraham — the faithful, the consecrated, the pathfinder. Isaac — the lackadaisical, the indifferent, the father of an illustrious son, the son of an illustrious father. Jacob — the Jew — crafty and cunning, yet tender-hearted and visionary, and God was the father of each and yet loved them all.

The fault with us is we want religion to level human nature at a dead uniformity, and we think Christians should all be conformed to our type, forgetting that Christ is the universal type — so universal that we may all be unlike each other and yet all be like him. It is the fault that belongs to our education. We grind all our children through the same mill. Black and white, delicate and robust, brilliant and dunderhead, they must all submit to the same polishing process.

It is the fault of our church system, also. We want to level down the whole congregation to our own miserable level. We think Christ has conceived in us the true conception of the saint. There is the Sunday school type and the Christian Endeavor type and the prayer meeting type. There is the elder type and the trustee type. The W. C. T. U. type and the Y. M. C. A. type. The temperance type and the missionary type. There is the Presbyterian and the Methodist and the Baptist type. The Mary and the Martha and the Lazarus type. But the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind, and all may be included in his all embracing love.

Let us remember that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Mary the passive, Martha the active, and Lazarus the patient. Mary — satisfied to be. Martha — to do. Lazarus — to do without. Mary — the waiter. Martha — the worker. Lazarus — the watcher. Mary content to sit. Martha content to serve. Lazarus content to suffer. And Jesus loved each and he loved all.

Jesus loved Martha. That is what the record says. The active, busy serving Christian Martha. She is in the majority today and is greatly in demand. Sometimes she is apt to think she is the only one whom the Lord loves. She has much Scripture to quote in favor of her disposition and she has the authority of great men who favor the strenuous life. What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only."

Martha is everywhere respected and honored today because she does things. She is the Sunday school, the prayer meeting, the church services, the missionary society, the ladies' aid. She is cooking, praying, sewing, visiting, collecting for the kingdom of God, until when night comes she falls asleep too tired to say her prayers. And Jesus loved Martha. And we must love her too. A religion that finds its joy in service and in consecrated activity is apt to be a moral power. A religion that finds God nearer in moments of sentiment or musical ecstasy, instead of in moments of moral endeavor, is extremely dangerous. Jesus loved Martha.

Jesus loved Mary. Mary — the quiet, retiring sister who sat at his feet. Mary's claim to recognition came from being willing to wait upon his words. She is like the beautiful picture through which you look into the great far beyond. She is like whispering music singing comfort into troubled hearts.

In a world of sin and turmoil Mary sat in the confidence of a beautiful trust. She was like another beautiful girl upon whose tombstone her friends carved the words: "It was easier to be good when she was with us." That was Mary's tribute. "What interests the world in Mr. Gladstone," writes John Morley, "is even more what he was than what he did." What interests the world in Jesus is not so much his beautiful teaching as his more beautiful life.

It was a hard lesson for Elijah to learn. He was the child of the storm and the tempest. He lived in reformations and revolutions. "Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before Jehovah."

My dear friends, let us not take away from the boundless power the love of God. He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. All with their differences. And they all loved him. Mary sits at his feet. Martha hurries to supply his wants. And Lazarus is content to glorify him with his radiant resurrection glory. With all our differences and misunderstandings and selfishness we love him and each in turn is loved by him.