Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - March 16/58

Contributor - Henry T. Rozendaal

Title - The Measure of the Master's Love

Topic - Jesus Christ

"WHEN THE TIME WAS COME THAT HE SHOULD; BE RECEIVED UP, HE STEADFASTLY SET HIS FACE, TO GO TO, JERUSALEM" Luke 9: 51

When this goes to press we'll be in the midst of the Lenten season when we think especially of the suffering and sacrifice of our Saviour. It ought to be very easy then for us to take a devotional attitude toward Him who did so much for us. The text which we named above, is one that speaks to us of a determination required on Jesus' part to go through and complete His great work. That it required determination of Him to faithfully accomplish His work can be seen again and again in the history of His life as given in the Gospels, if we but stop to meditate. And the insistence and unswerving adherence to a policy of faithfulness to His calling is, in a smaller measure at least, the Measure of the Master's Love.

Notice that Jesus' love is measured by His coming into the world to seek and to save. We must remember that His heavenly home knew no disturbance such as the home knows in this earthly life. There all was peace and harmony. No dispute and no quarreling ever entered there. Here Jesus as going to see something of the sordid side of life. He was going to live close to it even if not much of it would be experienced in the home He came to grace. He would see it in the homes about Him and be close to it. And it would pain Him. Besides seeing it, He would be known as belonging to a home like that. When people saw Him and spoke to Him and made contacts with Him they..did that as with another man. If they were suspicious of other men, they were suspicious of Him. If they expected others to deceive them, they expected that of Him. If they thought others would try to gain advantage by seeming to perform wonders, they expected nothing better of Him. Jesus, in coming to earth was going to suffer the humiliation of being suspect, counted untrustworthy among men. That must have cost something. His love was great enough to overcome. So great was the Measure of the Master's Love.

Praise Him for it!

Notice further the Measure of the Master's Love as evidenced in the Temptation. You are acquainted with the record of the event, or can find it in Matthew 4 or Luke 4. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. Now, the Devil was clever. He was no novice at this business of leading people astray. He knew enough to take advantage of an opportune situation; and so when Jesus was hungry he tempted Him with the prospect of food. When Jesus stood at the beginning of His life's work, when He would ordinarily be thinking about the best way to accomplish His purpose and the surest way of its successful completion, the Devil tempted Him with the promise of easy gain and mastery, which for Jesus would mean easy and sure salvation and redemption for the peoples. When He would be thinking about the minds of men and the thinking of the foibles of them, concerned especially about how to win them, the Devil tempted Him with the promise of a quick and easy following if He would but do something spectacular. It must have required a great deal of determination on Jesus' part to remain true to His calling and reject all methods of easy gain for the one method that was hard but honourable and alone successful. For, after all, He came to do a God-given task and accomplish a divine purpose. His determination in the face of devilish temptation, to- do God's work in God's way is the Measure of the Master's Love.

Praise Him for it

This determination was not exhausted at the temptation in the wilderness. That temptation was but a foreshadowing of the things that He would experience. When the people clung to Him after the "feeding of the five thousand" they practically were saying, "we will cleave to Thee and make Thee our king, you make bread". When they came to Him asking to see a miracle performed they were saying, "do something spectacular and we'll believe Thee and follow Thee". And they kept that up till He hung on the cross and they challenged Him to come down that they might believe. And it may be that when a Syrophoenician woman, or when a Samaritan woman came, or when the Greeks were brought by Philip, Jesus heard an echo of the Devil's temptation, "Let me give all these people to Thee". Notice Jesus' determination to accomplish His work in the way of the Lord. But notice, too, what it cost Him to continue true to His calling. Here was the Measure of the Master's Love.

Praise Him for it

The words of the text which we set above this article picture to us very clearly the Measure of the Master's Love. Remember the course events had taken. Jesus was well known now among the people. He was, however, not favourably known among the Jewish leaders. He had not feared to point them to their errors and selfish and sinful practices. Things had now gone so far that His foes would, if they saw their way clear, even do violence to Him if by so doing they could remove Him from the scene and from the thoughts of the people. Jerusalem was the hotbed of this hatred, opposition and hostility. This was no secret to Jesus. Even the apostles warned Him against going to Jerusalem on occasion because there they sought to kill Him.

We ought to remember, too, that Jesus saw even more than the apostles saw. After all, they only saw what men of sound and sane judgment could see. Jesus saw with the eyes of the divine. That is to say: the full extent to which the Jews were willing to go lay clearly open before His vision. The craven and cowardly policy of the Roman governor, though it violated all common legal practice, was no secret to Him. Jesus knew that to go to Jerusalem meant insult, and humiliation and scourging and the cross. But Jesus knew too, that going to Jerusalem meant sacrifice. His vision did not end in Jerusalem. It saw in Jerusalem blackened hearts cleansed; it saw out in the world beyond myriads of sins, staining hearts in crimson, washed away and the hearts made white as snow. And so Jesus "Steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem".

Praise Him for it!

The words "Steadfastly set His face" suggest to us that there was something of a struggle in it for Him. The exact working Of the Master's mind is not, of course, known to us. And to what extent such events as tempt human minds tempted Him we cannot say. Was the Gospel writer, Luke, here just reading into Jesus' mind what would have naturally have been in His mind if he had walked where Jesus walked ? Hardly. At least to his mind who gave him the information, the appearance and perhaps the words of Jesus caused him to see in Jesus the exercise of determination to go and face the things that lay before. How great the Master's Love!

Praise Him for it!

This determination and life-long Purpose Jesus crowned with His part in the events that took place vin Jerusalem after His arrival in the city. And, if it was not the Extra in the news of that day, it is and has become the item of interest for the world through the ages that have since passed. The arrest and the trial, and the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus has set the world on end. This measures Jesus' Love for us because of the relation it has to the lives of people.

How great it was ! Who can fathom it! Our human minds just cannot reach it. It is possible for a mother to forget the child that lay at her breast. Such a mother can even become hostile to such a child; but the Love of God reaches farther. The child that abused and insulted, and struck and killed Him, is still the object of His love.

"While we were yet sinners Christ died for us".

Praise Him for it! 0 what wonder; how amazing,

Jesus glorious king of kings

Deigns to call me His beloved,

Lets me rest beneath His wings.

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