Month: November 2013

The Enthusiasm of Jesus

John baptized with water. Jesus baptizes with fire. As Pastor Charles Edward Jefferson shows, the Perfect Man is a man on fire for the Father.

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Coming with power and speed, passion and zeal

“The New Testament is the most enthusiastic of all books, and Jesus is the most enthusiastic of all men. . . . Jesus burns with fervent heat. His very words are sparks which kindle conflagrations. . . . When we see some men hurrahing and adoring and other men gnashing their teeth and cursing, some boiling with love, others seething with hate, it is evident we are in the presence of a man whose heart glows like a furnace and whose soul radiates heat.”

“Even when a boy he used a word which expressed the intensity of his feeling, ‘Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?’ He never ceased to use that word ‘must.’ They wanted him to stay in Capernaum, but he could not do it. ‘I must preach the gospel of the kingdom of God to the other cities also.’ They wanted him to stay away from Jerusalem, knowing that it was dangerous there, but he said: ‘I must go to Jerusalem. I have a baptism to be baptized with’. . . . He kept saying, ‘I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work.'”

“Again and again we catch expressions in which we feel his great heart beating: ‘I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,’ ‘O woman, great is thy faith!’ ‘I thank thee, O Father!’ ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often!’ All are out of the throat of an enthusiast, a man surcharged with feeling. . . . Our heart leaps when we listen to them. The rains of the centuries have not put out their fire.”

Enthusiastic Praying, Enthusiastic Working

“How intense his life was we can see in what is told us of his habit of praying. He was always praying. He arose early in the morning in order to find more time to pray, he stayed up late at night in order to increase the hours in which he might speak to God. Sometimes he did not go to bed at all, remaining all night long upon some hilltop under the stars pouring out his soul to God.”

“He was enthusiastic in prayer, and therefore he was zealous in work. Men were astounded by the magnitude of his labors. Sometimes he did not take time to eat. Even when he went away for a season of relaxation he gave himself up to the crowds which pursued him. . . . Mark frankly tells us that there was a time in Jesus’ life when his labor was so excessive that his friends said, ‘He is beside himself!’ . . . Such burning earnestness in the work of doing good had never been seen in Palestine.”

“This was the judgment of his friends. His enemies did not hesitate to say boldly, ‘He has a devil, he is mad.’ Jesus made this impression not once, but often. Such zeal for righteousness, such enthusiasm for helping men seemed to the cold-blooded scribes the fury of a maniac. It was when Paul was burning with the same kind of heat that Festus cried, ‘Paul, thou art mad!’ Nothing seems so crazy as enthusiasm to a man incapable of feeling it.”

Three Roots

“If you ask for the cause of this enthusiasm, you will find it has three roots. First, Jesus had a sensitive nature. . . . There is a vast difference in the makeup of men. Some men are coarse, stolid, heavy. They have sensations but not intense ones. They have the emotions of vegetables. There are other men who are as delicately adjusted as an aeolian harp. Every breeze that blows over them causes them to vibrate and woos from them music. Such a man was Jesus.”

“Along with this nature capable of burning there existed a vision of God and a vision of man which set the nation on fire. Jesus saw that the maker of the universe is a Father, that at the center of things there beats a Father’s heart, that over all there extends a Father’s care, and that to all there flows a Father’s love. Other men have seen this dimly, as it were through a glass darkly, but Jesus saw it as it had never been seen before and as it has never been seen since. It was to him the one clear and luminous fact of the universe and everything else was seen in the glory of this stupendous truth.”

“Since God is the all-Father, then all men are His children. He created them all, He loves them all, He desires to save them all. No matter who they are or what they are or where they are, they are His children, and they cannot drift beyond His love and care. Men everywhere are brothers, and for one brother to help another, this is the supreme joy in living. Other men see this dimly, but to Jesus it was all clear as the sun at noon.”

“Out of such a nature heated hot by such a vision there came forth a purpose. . . . To the clear eye of Jesus a mighty battle was raging on the earth. There was a terrific conflict between right and wrong, light and darkness, good and evil, God and the Devil. There was nothing to do at such a crisis but to throw himself wholeheartedly into the contest, fighting indomitably for the glory of the Father and the welfare of his brethren. Put these three things together — a sensitive and inflammable nature, a clear and glorious vision, and a fiery and indomitable purpose — and you have the ingredients which go to produce the divine flame which is known as enthusiasm.”

The Highest of All Enthusiasms

“What a beautiful thing it is, enthusiasm! Moses turned aside to see a burning bush, everybody turns aside to see a burning man. Glance across the centuries and you will note that every time the race has turned aside from the beaten path it has been to see a man who was burning.”

“Enthusiasm is of different kinds. . . . But higher than all enthusiasms is the fire that burns in souls in love with God. To know Him, to serve Him, to glorify Him, this is the highest ambition of which the soul is capable, and the soul when possessed with this ambition burns with a fire that cannot be quenched. This was the enthusiasm of Jesus. In him the highest of the enthusiasms reached its climax. He lived and moved and had his being in the presence of the Eternal. From the beginning to the end he saw the majesty of righteousness, loved the beauty of holiness, and lived for the glory of God.”

On Fire, or Lukewarm?

“It is not to be wondered at, then, that the religion of Jesus likes the word ‘fire.’ John the Baptist declared that he could baptize only with water but that one was coming who would baptize with fire. From John’s hands men came dripping, from Jesus’ hands they came blazing. St. Luke tells us that on the Day of Pentecost there seemed to be a flame on every forehead, fit emblem of the new religion’s heart. John on the isle of Patmos thinking of Jesus . . . hears him talking to the Laodiceans, and this is what he says: ‘I would thou wert cold or hot. Because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth’. . . . The beloved disciple does not hesitate to represent Jesus saying, ‘Lukewarm Christians are nauseating to me!'”

“And alas! how many lukewarm Christians there are, men who are indifferent, neutral, neither hot nor cold. . . . What is the matter with Christians that they are so lacking in enthusiasm? The answer is that the nature is saturated, soaked by the chilling drizzle of worldliness, and along with this . . . comes a diminishing of the vision of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man, and because there is a shadowed vision, the glowing purpose is also lacking, and the soul does not catch fire. What, then, shall we do? Let us go back to Him who is a zealous God, so eager and ardent in His love that He gave His only begotten Son. If we are not ablaze in the presence of such a gospel, it is because we have a heart of stone; but He who knows our frame and who remembers that we are dust has promised . . . to give us a heart of flesh.”

Excerpts from The Character of Jesus by Charles Edward Jefferson (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1908)

The Indignation of Jesus

The Gospels say that sometimes Jesus blazed with anger. Yet in His anger, He did not sin. Pastor Charles Edward Jefferson explains why.

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The Lamb is also The Lion

“There are certain moods and feelings which we are reluctant to ascribe to Jesus, because they are so common and so human. Characteristics which are conspicuous and disconcerting in ourselves, we do not readily associate with him. For instance, was it possible for Jesus to be angry? If it was, he was amazingly like ourselves. The humblest and least gifted of us are adepts in the realm of indignation. Our capacity for wrath was manifested in us early, and we have developed it by constant use.”

“Moreover, anger is associated in our mind with infirmity. Much of our own anger has been . . . a boiling of the blood, full of sound and fury, having no ethical significance. Sometimes it has been a burst of petulance, an explosion of nervous energy, a sort of madness bordering on the frontiers of insanity. While the fever was upon us we felt our wrath was justifiable, but on the cooling of the blood we repented in sackcloth and ashes. We have also noticed what anger does for others. It has not escaped us that when men and women are angry they usually make fools of themselves.”

“Most of the indignation which we have known has been so childish or so brutish, so full of fury and of bitterness, that we find it hard to give it place in the experience of a strong and holy man. So prone is anger to mix itself with base and unlovely elements, and so frequently does it stir up the mud at the bottom of the soul, that it has been often classed among the vices as a passion which is always ignoble, and therefore to be condemned, resisted, strangled. . . . It is not easy to free one’s self from the feeling that anger has something sinful in it, or that if anger is not actually sinful, it is at any rate unlovely, a defect or flaw in conduct, a deformity in character.”

“He Looked Around at Them in Anger”

“It is because of this assumption that anger is in its essence sinful that many persons find it impossible to think of Jesus in an angry mood. . . . But the evangelists were not . . . handicapped by the notions which bewilder us. They felt that they must write down clearly what they saw and heard, and prompted thus to tell a round, unvarnished tale they do not hesitate to inform us that Jesus sometimes blazed with anger.”

“They tell us that it was inhumanity and insincerity which always kindled his heart to furnace heat. When he saw men — ordained religious leaders of the people — more interested in their petty regulations than in the welfare of their fellow men, his eyes burned with holy fire. . . . Any darkening of the world by cruelty or craft brought his soul to its feet fiery-eyed and defiant. He was angered by the desecration of the Temple. . . . That a building erected for the purpose of adorning the name of God should be converted into a market was so abhorrent to his great soul that he was swept onward into action. . . . Who can read the denunciation of the Pharisees without realizing that he is in the presence of a volcano belching molten lava? No one could speak language like that which the evangelists have recorded who was not capable of tremendous indignation. It is a wrath which leaps beyond the wrath of man.”

The Lion and The Lamb

“Here, then, we have in Jesus what seems to some a contradiction. He is a Lamb and at the same time he is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He caresses like a mother and he also strikes like a thunderbolt. He is tender but he is also terrible; he is loving but he also smites with a blow which crushes.”

“How can we reconcile the indignation of Jesus with his love? Nothing is easier. His indignation is the creation of his love. . . . Only those who have never loved have difficulty in understanding the heart’s capacity for wrath. Did you ever see a lover stand calm-eyed and gentle-tempered in the presence of the villain who had dared insult the queen of his heart? When since the world began has love ever maintained a quiet pulse in the presence of the assailant of a loved one? A mother, all gentleness and sweetness as she moves among her children, passes into an avenging fury in the face of a foe who would harm them. The dimensions of her indignation will be determined by the depth and heat of her love.”

“It is the hottest love which when enlisted in the welfare of others scorches opposing forces to cinders. The power of loving and the power of hating must always go together. There is right and there is wrong, the first must be approved, the second must be condemned. The condemnation must not be cold but vehement. It must carry with it all the energy of the soul. It must have at the heart of it that heavenly fire which is known on earth as indignation.”

“In Your Anger Do Not Sin”

“In Jesus, then, we see what a normal man is and feels. He is full-orbed, complete. He gives sweep to every passion of the soul. He will not admit that in the garden of the heart there are any plants which the Heavenly Father has planted which ought to be rooted up. All the impulses, desires, and passions with which the Almighty has endowed us have a mission to perform, and life’s task is not to strangle them but to train them for their work.”

“Jesus was angry but he did not sin. Anger because of its heat readily passes beyond its appointed limits. Like all kinds of fire, it is dangerous and difficult to control. Jesus controlled it. ‘Thus far,’ he said, ‘and no farther.’ No sinful element mingled in that indignation which burned with a white and resistless heat.”

“Our anger is frequently a manifestation of our selfishness. We become indignant over trifles. The streetcar does not stop, or someone knocks off our hat, or a servant disappoints us, and we are aflame. Our comfort has been molested, our rights have been entrenched upon, our dignity has been affronted, and we are downright mad. . . . But in the presence of gigantic outrages perpetrated on the helpless and the weak, some of us are as calm as a summer morning. Bad men do not make us angry unless they interfere with our own affairs.”

“Our indignation then is quite different from that of Jesus. His anger never had its roots in selfishness. When men abused him, he was unruffled. When they lied about him, his pulse beat was not quickened. When they nailed his hands to the cross, . . . his calm lips kept on praying, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ It was when he saw his brother men abused that his great soul rose in wrath. The more helpless the person who was mistreated, the hotter was the fire of his indignation. . . . The thought of bad men leading innocent souls to sin converted him into a furnace of fire. What a whirlwind of flame sweeps through a sentence like this, ‘Whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me to stumble, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.'”

Our Anger and God’s Righteousness

“If, then, we have ever been scandalized by the account of Jesus’ indignation, we should examine ourselves and find out why we shrink from the thought that a man like him should burn with anger. . . . It may be that our criticism springs from blood which has become impoverished.”

“If we fail to burn in the presence of cruelty and injustice, it is because the higher faculties of the soul have become atrophied by sin. If wood does not burn, it is because it is green or rotten. If hearts do not burn with holy fire against wicked men and their wicked deeds, it is because the heart is too undeveloped to feel what manly hearts were meant to feel, or because the core of the heart has been eaten out by the base practices of a godless life. It is one of the lamentable signs of our times — our incapacity for anger. Many of us are lukewarm in the presence of evils which are colossal. Some of us are indifferent. Indifference to wrongdoing is always a sign of moral deterioration. If we do not flame against villainy, it is because there is so much of the villain in ourself.”

“Society would be cleansed of much of its pollution if we had more men and women capable of becoming genuinely angry. Let us pray then every day that a new indignation may sweep through the world. As Plutarch put it long ago, ‘Anger is one of the winds by which the sails of the soul are filled.’ Many a belated bark would have reached port long ago if anger had been allowed to do its perfect work. It is the devil’s trick to keep good men from becoming angry.”

“The world is full of sentimentalists — men and women who gush of love, and who do not know what love is. After listening to their flimsy talk it is refreshing to get into a book where every bad deed is held up to scorn and every bad man, if unrepentant, is overwhelmed with shame. Nowhere in the Gospels is there a soft or flabby thought, a doughy or mushy feeling. . . . Under such a sky, life becomes august, solemn, beautiful. It is worthwhile to strive, to work, to suffer. One feels sure that God is in His heaven, and though wickedness may flourish for a season, God’s heart burns with quenchless fire against it, and at the end of the days every impure man, and every cruel man, and every man who loves and makes a lie, will find himself outside the city whose streets are gold.”

Excerpts from The Character of Jesus by Charles Edward Jefferson (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1908)

The Gladness of Jesus

As Pastor Charles Edward Jefferson shows, even Jesus’s critics recognized His joy. And Jesus said His joy would be in us, if only we abide in Him.

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Imagine the joy of Jesus

“We are trying to see Jesus of Nazareth! Our one question is: What kind of man was he? . . . It is by no means easy to see him as he was, the mists blow in between us and him, and blur the features of his face. The dust settles upon the picture which the evangelists have painted and the man becomes dim to our eyes. All sorts of men — poets, philosophers, painters — have like so many human spiders woven cobwebs over the picture, so that until we brush the cobwebs away it is impossible to see him.”

“All the Christian churches take their name from this man. The churches differ widely from one another in worship, in government, in teachings, . . . but this one thing is remarkable, that all the Christian churches of the world are clinging tenaciously to the garments of this man. . . . ‘He,’ they say, ‘is our example. We are to reproduce the characteristic notes displayed in him.’ And therefore it becomes not only an interesting enterprise, but one of tremendous importance, this effort to find out what kind of man he was. If we get a distorted image of him, we harm ourselves and rob the world.”

“Pushing then all the poets and philosophers aside, let us ask ourselves the question: Did Jesus of Nazareth impress men as glad or sad, solemn or radiant, jubilant or melancholy? There is no doubt about the answer which the painters give. They nearly always paint him sad. . . . But we cannot afford to follow the painters. They paint Jesus with a halo. Nobody in Jerusalem ever saw the halo. . . . We want to see him as he was.”

Hostile Witnesses

“To find out what impression he really made upon the people of his day, it will be worth our while to listen to what his enemies had to say. Of course his enemies will not speak the ungarbled truth, they will deal in falsehoods; but even falsehoods are of great advantage in trying to make one’s way toward the truth. . . . For falsehoods when arranged in a row have a curious fashion of pointing in the direction of the truth. When a man begins lying, if you can only keep him lying long enough, he will by and by put you on the track of discovering what the truth is. And so it is with the enemies of Jesus.”

“They have said certain things which are invaluable to us in our search after authentic knowledge of the character of Jesus. . . . They declared he was a glutton. Of course he was not, but they said he was. Now a glutton is never a glum and sour-faced man. Gluttony is a form of pleasure. . . . When men said he was a glutton we may rest assured he was not an ascetic in his looks or habits.”

“They also called him a wine bibber. Of course he was not, but the very fact that they accused him of guzzling wine points in the direction of the kind of man he was. A wine bibber is usually a jolly man. . . . A man under the influence of wine is exceedingly social and talkative and genial. The enemies of Jesus would never have called him a wine bibber if he had been as glum and sad as some of the artists have painted him.”

“They called him also the friend of publicans and sinners. . . . He associated with people who had no piety at all. When they declared he was a friend of these non-churchgoers, they implied that he was of the same stripe as they. . . . So his enemies declared, and if Jesus had been taciturn and sullen, grim and morose, his enemies would never have declared he was a boon companion of lighthearted men. . . . Put, then, these three bits of falsehood together, and what is the direction in which they point? They are the most precious bits of slander that ever slipped from slimy lips. They prove indisputably that whatever Jesus was or was not, he was not morose or sour or melancholy.”

Wedding Joy

“Having listened to the testimony of his enemies, let us now study one of the words Jesus applied to himself. . . . Some people came to Jesus one day in disgust, saying, ‘Why do your disciples not fast?’ The reply of Jesus is illuminating. He said, ‘How can the children of the bridechamber fast when the bridegroom is with them?’ Did you ever mark the use of that word ‘bridegroom’? . . . He seized upon a word that is the symbol of human joy. If ever a man is happy in this world, it is on his wedding day. Jesus says that he lives in an atmosphere of wedding joy, and so also do his disciples.”

“It would seem, then, that Jesus was a man abounding in joy. Gladness was one of the notes of his character. Listen to him as he teaches, and again and again you catch the notes of happiness. He was all the time saying, ‘Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God’ — and what was it in the little child that attracted him? One thing which attracted him was the child’s sunny heart. What would we do in this world without the children laughing away the cares and sighs?”

“Or listen again to what he says about worry. He defines it as one of the deadliest of all sins. We are not to worry about the present, about the necessities of existence, about tomorrow, about what we ought to do or say in the great crises which lie ahead of us. It is not right, he says; it is contrary to the law of God. Look at nature: see the lilies and the birds, there is not a trace of worry or of care in all nature’s lovely face.”

“Listen again to the exhortations which he gives his disciples. He tells them that when men persecute them and say all manner of evil against them falsely, they are to rejoice and be exceeding glad. The English translation does not do justice to the Greek. He says, ‘Rejoice and leap for joy.’ Let your joy express itself. When matters are at their worst, then you ought to have the happiness which leaps. Certainly a sad-hearted man could never give advice like that.”

“Listen to him again as he says to the great crowds, ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ A glum-faced prophet could never speak so. He was glad even to the end. Even in the upper chamber, with death only a few hours away, he goes right on speaking of the joy that is bubbling up in his own heart and he prays that the same joy may abound in the hearts of those that love him. He tells his disciples that all of his teaching has been granted unto them because of his desire that his joy might remain in them.”

Son Kissed

“A Christian must then, if he would follow Jesus, be a joyous and jubilant man. Someone says at once, ‘Ah, I know many Christians who are anything but happy, they are the most doleful creatures in all the world, they whine and whimper, they sob and cry, their very faces are images of woe — how will you explain that?’ The explanation is that all such persons although they profess to follow Jesus, follow him afar off.”

“They are not developed Christians, mature or ripened Christians. The very finest apples, you know, in the earlier stages of their growth are sour and green. It is not until the sun has done his perfect work that they are golden and luscious. Just so it is with souls in the earlier stages of development — they are often green and sour, crabbed, and full of acid. But if they will only subject themselves to the shining of the sun, the great joyous, exuberant, laughing sun, all the juices of their nature will grow sweet and mellow, and they will find themselves at last in the kingdom of peace and joy.”

Excerpts from The Character of Jesus by Charles Edward Jefferson (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1908)

The Firmness of Jesus

Jesus is velvet, but He is also steel. He is tender and giving, but stands firm as a mountain wall of rock. Pastor Charles Edward Jefferson explains.

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Soft meadows, and rock walls

“Let us think now of the firmness of Jesus. Of his tenderness we think often, and also of his gentleness and graciousness. To these lovely graces the heart is joyfully responsive, and in dwelling upon them we are likely to overlook other traits no less beautiful and praiseworthy. Gentleness of nature is not a virtue but a defect unless it is accompanied by tenacity of will. Sweetness of disposition is not enough to make a man useful and noble. Along with the sweetness there must go strength, and underneath the moods soft as velvet there must lie a resoluteness hard as steel.”

“He is indeed a strong character who dares run counter to the traditions and fashions of his time. Even the strongest and most independent often bow down before standards against which conscience revolts and submit to customs against which the heart protests. Humanity goes in crowds and droves. . . . The majority of mortals are not strong enough to be themselves: they become echoes of their neighbors and walk in paths marked out by others.”

“But when we come to Jesus we are in the presence of a man whom nobody swerved or dominated, who is so free from the bias of his race and so clean of the spirit of his age that he seems to belong to all races and all ages. . . . He is not a citizen of the first century only, but the contemporary of each succeeding generation. Immersed in an ocean of mighty forces which beat upon him furiously through every hour of his career, he resisted them all successfully by the indomitable energy of a victorious will, living a life unique in its beauty and achieving a work unmarred by the limitations either of time or place.”

Not Insurrection — Resurrection

“He was not insensible to the dominant forces of his time. . . . His countrymen had formed definite ideas of the Messiah. He was to be a wonder worker and the manifestations of his power were to be spectacular and overwhelming. He was to trample opposing forces under his feet and make Palestine the center of the world. This was the dream, this was the expectation. The best men expected this, as did also the worst men. It is a dangerous thing to baffle popular expectations. . . . Good and great men have found no difficulty in every land and generation in bringing themselves to yield, at least up to a certain point, to the wishes and demands of their countrymen.”

“How could Jesus hope to win the attention of his people or control the current of their life unless he fell in with their ideals and attempted to carry out the program on which their hearts were set? It was a great temptation, so terrific that he told his apostles all about it. He assured them that in this temptation he had been wrestling with the very prince of infernal powers, but . . . had come out of the conflict victorious. In choosing the road which led to supremacy by way of Gethsemane and Golgotha, he renounced the ideals of his countrymen and disappointed their dearest expectations.”

Not Your Plan — The Plan

“When we study his life with attentive eyes we see it was one long resistance to the forces of his age. He was a patriot, but he could not go with his countrymen in their patriotic programs or expectations. He was a churchman, but he could not go with the members of the Jewish church in their favorite teachings and ceremonies. They taught doctrines of the Sabbath which he could not accept. They presented forms of worship to which he could not submit. They laid down lines of separation which it was impossible for him to observe.”

“It is not easy to run counter to the deep-seated feelings of the most religious people of one’s day, or to cut across the grain of the prejudices of the most conscientious men in town. There were many reasons why Jesus should have conformed to the ideas and customs of the church, but he firmly resisted all the voices which urged him toward conformity, standing out alone in defiance of what the best men were doing and saying, even though his nonconformity seemed to the majority impiety and to many blasphemy. For a godly man to be classed among blasphemers is one of the bitterest experiences which the heart can know. But Jesus paid the price and continued firm.”

“One party after another tried to work him into its scheme, but he was intractable and went on his way independent, unshackled, free. All the seductions offered by men who sat on thrones could not swerve him from his course, and although his steadfastness made him enemies and finally nailed him to the cross, he was everywhere and always a man who could not be moved.”

Not Your Wish — God’s Will

“There are men who are too strong to be manipulated by their foes, but in the hands of their friends they are plastic as wax. Jesus could not be manipulated even by his friends. He had many friends in Nazareth, but he never gave up his principles to please them. They had their prejudices and superstitions, but he never surrendered to them. He knew their bigotry and narrowness, and so in his opening sermon he told the story of God’s compassion on a Syrian leper, and also on a Sidonian widow. His sermon raised the storm which he had anticipated, but he bore the fury of it without flinching. He would not keep silent when he knew he ought to speak.”

“Probably no neighbor in Nazareth was ever so near to Jesus’ heart as his dear friend Simon Peter. At a crisis in Jesus’ life Peter did his best to dissuade him from a certain course, but the loyal and loving friend succeeded no better than the most hostile Pharisee. This man of Nazareth could not be moved by friend or foe. It was his Father’s business he was attending to, and therefore all efforts to draw him aside were made in vain. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ he said to the astonished Peter, recognizing in him the same evil spirit he had contended with years before in the desert. To defy powerful enemies is hard, but to turn a deaf ear to loving friends is harder still. Only a man of unconquerable will is equal to a test so taxing. Jesus met it and did not fail.”

“It was a test he faced in his own home. His brothers did not understand him. Their lack of understanding curtailed their sympathy with him. From their standpoint he often did the injudicious thing, and refused to do the thing which would have forwarded his reputation. They were always ready with advice. He could not take it. They urged him to go to Jerusalem at a time when he could not go. They exhorted him to go home at a time when his duty was to be somewhere else. Only a man who has been driven by conscience to go contrary to the wishes of members of his own family can enter into the experience which Jesus suffered or can measure the strength of will which one must have to resist successfully the importunities of love.”

“This test of will power reached its climax in Jesus’ conflict with his mother. She loved him and he loved her, but he could not always carry out her wishes. There comes a time in many a man’s life when even his own mother’s exhortations must go unheeded in order to obey a higher call. Such an experience came to Jesus. . . . The ties to Mary were not so deep as the ties which bound Jesus to the heavenly Father, and when Mary’s wish conflicted with the Father’s will, the wish of the woman was pushed aside to make room for the will of God.”

Not Shifting and Drifting — The Rock of Ages

“Here, then, we have a situation which is distressing indeed. The most tender and gracious and obliging of men is compelled to resist not only the prayers of his countrymen but the wishes of his family and friends. He stands like a rock in the midst of a troubled sea, and all its billows dash themselves against his feet in vain. There was something inflexible in his will, something granitic in his soul. When he found a man whom he thought worthy to be the first member of his church he called him ‘rock.'”

“It is in this tenacity of will that we find an indispensable element of Christian character. Men are to resist exterior forces and form their life from within. They are not to be swayed by current opinion, but by the spirit of the Eternal in their heart. They are not to listen to the voices of time, but to live and work for eternity. We like this steadfastness in human character, and we also crave it in God. Men have always loved to think of Him as the unchanging and the unchangeable, the one ‘with whom there can be no variation, nor shifting shadow.’ And what we desire in God we find in Jesus of Nazareth. . . . ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yea and forever.'”

“What Jesus was in Palestine he is today and shall be for evermore. All his promises stand unshaken, all his warnings remain unchanged. His attitude to sinners is what it has been from the beginning and what it will be to the end. You cannot discourage him by your ingratitude or make him other than he is by your disobedience. He is not broken down by human folly or driven from his plan by human perversity. From age to age he is about his Father’s business, and in the midst of all nations and kindreds and tongues he goes about doing good.”

Excerpts from The Character of Jesus by Charles Edward Jefferson (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1908)