Love at Leisure
“Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.” — Luke x. 39.
December 3rd, 1876
MARY was full of a love to Christ which could be very active and self-sacrificing. I have read to you of her pouring the precious box of spikenard upon our Lord for his anointing. She was therefore one who not only waited and listened, but she served the Lord after her sort and fashion. If she had been simply contemplative and nothing more, we might, perhaps, have considered her somewhat of a one-sided character, and while pointing to that which was good in her as an example, we might have had to comment on her deficiencies, but she did more than sit at the Master’s feet. Beloved, if we ever serve the Lord as Mary did, we shall do well.
Now, since she was able thus to serve, she becomes a safe example for us in this other matter of restful faith. The portion of her life occupied in sitting at her Master’s feet may instruct and help us. I feel I can safely hold her up to you as an example in all respects, and the more so because, for the particular incident just now before us, she received the Master’s express commendation. He praised her also for bringing the box of ointment, but, on this occasion, he praised her too, saying that she had chosen the good part which should not be taken from her. He could not have more conspicuously set his seal of approbation on her conduct than he did. I am not going to say much about her, but I want to speak to those of you who love the Lord as Mary did, to try if I cannot entice you for your own rest and for your own encouragement into following her example in this particular incident, namely, that of sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have already said you can see that the example is only part of her life — one side of it; at another time I may take the other side, and exhort you to follow her also in that; but for this next hour or so, I want you to leave out the other side of her character and stick only to this. Consider it well, for I am persuaded that this is the true preparation for the other, — that contemplation and rest at the Saviour’s feet will give you strength which will enable you afterwards to anoint his feel according as your heart’s love shall dictate.
On this occasion, then, we have only to do with Mary sitting at our Saviour’s feet. There shall be four heads which you will not forget: — love at leisure sitting down; love in lowliness, sitting at Jesus’ feet; love listening — she heard his words; love learning — she heard his words to most blessed purpose: all the while she chose the good part.
I. First, then, LOVE AT LEISURE. That is a point which I want you specially to notice. You that have families to feed and clothe, know how, all day long, you are busy — very busy, perhaps; the husband is away from early morning till the evening comes; the children have gone to school, and the wife is occupied in a hundred household things. But now the evening meal is over, and there is a warm fire burning on the hearth. Is it not one of the most pleasant sights of English interiors to see the family gathered around the fire, just to sit still for a little while to talk, and to indulge in those domestic loves which are the charm of that sweet English word “home”? May an Englishman never cease to think of the word “home” as the most musical word that ever dropped from mortal lips! Now love is quiet and still, and, I was about to say, careless. Outside it has to watch its words, but inside it is playful, it is at ease, it disports itself, fearless of all adversaries. It takes its rest. The armour is put off, and the soldier feels the day’s battle is done. He stands not on his guard any longer. He is amongst those, that love him, and he feels that he is free. I do not know what life would be if there were not some of those sweet leisure moments when love has nothing else to do except to love — those intervals, those oases in the desert of life, whereon to love is to be happy, and to be loved is to be doubly blest.
Now, Christian people ought to have such times. Let us put aside our service for awhile. I am afraid that even those who are busy in the Master’s work and are not occupied much with lower things, yet overlook the necessity for love to be at leisure. Now tonight, at any rate, you that work longest and toil most, and have to think the hardest, can ask the Lord to make this a leisure tame between you and Jesus. You are not called upon to help Martha to prepare the banquet. Just sit still now — sit still and rest at Jesus’ feet, and let nothing else occupy the next hour, but sitting still and loving and being loved by him.
Can we not get rid of worldly cares? We have had enough of them during the six days: let us cast the whole burden of them upon our Lord. Let us roll them up and leave them all at the throne of grace. They will keep till to-morrow, and there is no doubt whatever that they will plague us enough then, unless we have faith enough to master them. But now put them on the shelf. Say, “I have nothing to do with you now — any one of you. You may just be quiet. My soul has gone away from you, up to the Saviour’s bosom, there to rest and to delight herself in him.”
And then let us try to banish all church cares also, Holy cares should not always trouble us. As I came here just now, I said to LOVE LEISURE. myself, “I will try to-night not to think about how I shall preach, or how this part of the sermon may suit one class of my hearers or that part another. I will just be like Lazarus was, of whom it is written that ‘Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.’” You know that the preacher to such a congregation as this may often find himself like Martha, cumbered with much serving if he forgets that he is but a servant of the Master, and has only to do his bidding. You may well excuse us. But it must not be so to-night. Whether you are deacon or elder, or preacher, or hearer, you must have nothing to do to-night with anything outside of our blessed Lord and our own hearts. Our love shall claim this time for her own rest. No, Martha, even though you are getting ready to feast Christ, we will not hear the clatter of dishes or the preparation of the festival. We must now sit just there at his feet, and look up, and have no eyes except for him, no ears except for him, no heart except for him. It shall be love’s leisure night to-night.
And, in truth, beloved, we have plenty of reason for resting no heart except for him. It shall be love’s leisure night to-night. And, in truth, beloved, we have plenty of reason for resting. Let us sit at Jesus’ feet because our salvation is complete. He said, “It is finished,” and he knew that he had wrought it all. The ransom-price is paid for thee, O my soul; not one drop has been withheld of the blood that is thy purchase. The robe of righteousness is woven from top to bottom; there is not one thread for thee to add. It is written, “Ye are complete in him,” and however frail we be, yet are we “perfect in Christ Jesus,” and in spite of all our sin we are “accepted in the beloved.” If it be so, O love, hast thou not room for leisure; is not this thought a divan upon which thou mayest stretch thyself, and find that there is space enough for thee to take thy fullest ease? Thy rest is not like the peace of the ungodly of whom it is said, “The bed is shorter than that a man may stretch himself upon it.” Here is perfect rest for thee; a couch long enough and broad enough for all thy need. And if, perchance, thou shouldest remember, O my heart, that thou hast sin yet to overcome, and corruption within thee yet to combat, bethink thee this night that Christ has put away all thy sin, for he is “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth,” and that he has overcome the world on thy behalf, and said to thee, “Be of good cheer.” Thou hast to fight, but thy foe is a routed foe. It is a broken-headed dragon that thou hast to go to battle with, and the victory is sure, for thy Saviour has pledged himself to it. Thou mayest well take thy leisure, for the past is blotted out and the future is secure. Thou art a member of Christ’s body, and as such thou canst not die. Thou art a sheep of his pasture, and as such he will never lose thee. Thou art a jewel of his crown, and as such he will never take his eye or his heart off from thee. Surely then thou mayest take thy leisure.
Let us rest also because we have received so much from our Master. Be sure to remember, O heart that wouldest have leisure for love, that though thou hast many mercies to receive, there are not so many to come as thou hast had already. Thou hast great things yet to learn, but not such great things as thou hast been taught already. He that has found Christ Jesus to be his Saviour has found more than he will ever find again, even though he find a heaven, since even heaven itself is in the loins of Christ, and he that getteth Jesus hath got an eternity of bliss in him. If God gave thee Christ, all else is small compared with the gift thou already hast. Take thy leisure, then, and rejoice in thy Lord himself and in his infinite perfections.
As to the Lord’s work, we may well take leisure for love, because it is his work. It will go on rightly enough. It is his work, the saving of those souls. It is well that we are so eager; it were better if we were more eager. But just now we may lay even our eagerness aside, for it is not ours to save: it is his, and he will do it. He will give you soon to see of the travail of his soul. Christ will not die in vain. Election’s decree shall not be frustrated, and redemption’s purpose shall not be turned aside. Therefore rest.
Besides, my heart, what canst thou do, after all? Thou art so little and so altogether insignificant; if thou dost worry thyself into thy grave what canst thou accomplish? God did well enough before thou wert born, and he will do well enough when thou art gone home. Therefore fret not thyself. I have sometimes heard of ministers that have been quite exhausted by the preparation of a single sermon for the Sunday. I am told, indeed, that one sermon on a Sunday is as much as any man can possibly prepare. It is such laborious work to elaborate a sermon. And then I say to myself, “Did my Lord and Master require his servants to preach such sermons as that.” Is it not probable that they would do a great deal more good, if they never tried to do any such fine things, but just talked out of their hearts of the simplest truths of his blessed gospel. I turn to the Old Testament, and I find that he told his priests to wear white linen, but he also told them never to wear anything that caused sweat, from which I gather that he did not want his priests in the temple to be puffing and blowing and sweating and toiling like a set of negro slaves. He meant that his service, although they threw their strength into it, should never be wearisome to them. He is not a task-master, like Pharaoh, exacting his tale of bricks, and then again a double tale, giving his servants no straw wherewith to make them. No, but he says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Therefore it seems to me that, with all the work his people do — and they ought to do it so as to pour their whole life on his head like a box of precious spikenard, yet he did not mean them to go up and down about his service, stewing and worrying and killing their very lives out of them about this and that and the other. They will do his service a great deal better if they will very often come and sit down at his feet, and say, “Now I have nothing to do but to love him — nothing to do but to receive his love into my soul.” Oh, if you will seek after such quiet communion you will be sure to work with a holy might that shall consume you. First take in the strength by having these blessed leisures at the Saviour’s feet. “He that believeth shall not make haste.” He shall have such peace and restfulness, such quiet and calm, that he shall be in no hurry of fear or fright, but he shall be like the great Eternal who, with all that he doeth — and he worketh hitherto, and guide-th the whole universe which is full of stupendous wonders — yet never breaks the eternal leisure in which his supreme mind for over dwells.
Well, if we cannot keep up such leisure as that, at least let us have it to-night. I invite you, persuade you, and entreat you, beloved Marys and others like you, to do nothing but just enjoy the leisure of love, and sit at Jesus’ feet.
II. The second thing is LOVE IN ITS LOWLINESS. Love wants to spend her time with Christ: she picks her place, and her place is down at his feet. She doth not come to sit at the table with him, like Lazarus, but she sitteth down on the ground at his feet.
Observe that love in this case does not take the position of honour. She is not a busy housewife, managing affairs, but a lowly worshipper who can only love. Some of us have to be managers for Christ; managing this and managing that; but perhaps love is most at home when she forgets that she has anything to manage. She leaves it to manage itself, or better still, she trusts the Lord to manage it all, and just subsides from a manager into a disciple, from a worker into a penitent, from a giver forth into a receiver, from a somebody, which grace has made her, to a nobody, glad to be nothing, content to be at his feet, just to let him be everything, while self sinks and sinks away. Do not let me only talk about this, beloved, but let it be done. Love your Lord now. Let your hearts remember him. Behold his robes of love, all crimsoned with his heart’s blood. You shall take your choice whether you look up to him on the cross, or on the throne. Let it be as suits your mind best to-night; but in any case say unto him, “Lord, what am I, and what is my father’s house, that thou hast loved me so?”
Sit near thy Lord, but sit at his feet. Let such words as these be upon thy lip, “Lord, I am not worthy to be called by thy grace. I am not worthy to be written in thy book of life. I am not worthy that thou shouldest waste a thought on me, much less that thou shouldest shed thy blood for me. I do remember now what I was when thou didst first deal with me. I was cold, careless and hard towards thee, but very wanton and eager towards the world, giving my heart away to a thousand lovers, and seeking comfort anywhere except in thee. And when thou didst come to me, I did not receive thee. When thou didst knock at my door, I did not open to thee, though thy head was wet with dew and thy locks with the drops of the night. And, oh! since through thy grace I have admitted thee, and thou and I have been joined together in bonds of blessed union, yet how ill have I treated thee! O my Lord! how little have I done for thee! How little have I loved thee! I could faint in thy presence to think that if thou didst examine me and cross-question me, I could not answer thee one of a thousand of the questions thou mightest ask of me. Thy book accuses me of negligence in reading it. Thy throne of grace accuses me of slackness in prayer. The assemblies of thy people accuse me that I have not been hearty in worshipping. There is nothing, either in providence or in nature, or in grace, but what might bring some accusation against me. The world itself might blame me that my example so little rebukes it; and my very family might charge that I do not bless my household as I should.” That is right, dear brother, or sister. Sink; go on sinking; be little; be less; be less shill; be still less; be least of all; be nothing.
Lift up thine eyes from thy lowly place to him who merits all thy praise. Say to him, “But what art thou, beloved, that thou shouldest have thought of me, or ever the earth was, that thou shouldest take me to thyself to be thine, and then for me shouldest leave the royalties of heaven for the poverties of earth, and shouldest even go down to the grave that thou mightest lift me up and make me to sit with thee at thy right hand? Oh! what wonders thou hast wrought on me; and I am not worthy of the least of thy mercies; and yet thou hast given me great and unspeakable blessings. If thou hadst only let me be a doorkeeper in thy house, I had been happy; but thou hast set me among princes. If thou hadst given me the crumbs from thy table, as dogs are fed, I had been satisfied; but thou hast put me among the children. If thou hadst said that I might just stand outside the gates of heaven now and then, on gala days, to hear thy voice, it would have been bliss for me; but now thou hash promised me that I shall be with thee where thou art, to behold thy glory and to be a partaker of it, world without end.” Does not such thoughts as these make you sink? I do not know how it is with you, but, the more I think of the Lord’s mercies, the more I grow downward. I could weep to think that he should lavish so much on one that gives him no return at all, for so it seems to my heart that it is with me. What do you think of yourself? What are your faith, your love, your liberality, your prayers, your works? Dare you call them anything? Do you imagine that the Lord is pleased with your past? Would he not rather say to you, “Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices; but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins and wearied me with thy iniquities.” So we sit down again at his feet, and from that place we would not wish to rise. Love’s leisure shall be spent in acts of humiliation. We will bow at the feet that were pierced for our redemption.
III. But now, in the third place, here is LOVE LISTENING. She is down there in the place of humility, but she is where she can catch each word as it falls, and she is there with that object. She wishes to hear all that Christ has to say, and she wishes to hear it close at hand. She wants to hear the very tones in which he speaks and the accents with which he delivers each precept. She loves to look up and see that eye which has such meaning in it, and that blessed countenance which speaks as much as the lips themselves; and so she sits there, and she looks with her eyes toward him as a handmaid’s eyes are to her mistress; and then, with her ears and her eyes, she drinks in what he has to say.
Now, beloved, I want you just to do that. Say in prayer now, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth;” and then with your ear open hear what he says by his word. Perhaps there is some text that has come home to your soul to-day. Hear it. Hear it well. It would not be much use for anyone to try to preach a sermon in the centre of the city in the middle of the day. If you stood near St. Paul’s Cathedral, with all that traffic going by, and all that rumbling, roaring, and shouting, why, the big bell itself might speak, and you would hardly hear it. But when it is night, and all is still, then you can hear the city clocks strike; and you might hear a man’s voice even though it was not a very strong one, if he went through the streets, and delivered a message with which he had been entrusted. Well, our blessed Lord often takes advantage of those quiet times when the man has a broken leg, and cannot get to work, but must be still in the hospital, or when the woman is unable to get about the house, to attend to her ordinary duties, but is so helpless that she cannot do anything else but think. Then comes the Lord, and he begins to bring to our remembrance what we have done in days past, and to talk with us as he never has the opportunity of doing at any other time. But it is far more blessed to find time ourselves, so that the Lord will not need to afflict us in order to get us quickly at his feet. Oftentim.es the Good Shepherd in caring for the sheep “maketh us lie down,” but he is glad when we come of our own accord that we may rest and listen to his word.
Listen to what he is saying to you by providence. Perhaps a dear child is sick at home, or you have losses and crosses in business. It may not seem to you as if these things come from your loving Lord, but they are perhaps the pressure of his hand to draw you. to his side that he may tell you his secret. Perhaps it has been mercy that has come to you in another way. You have been prospered, you have been converted, you have had much joy in your family. Well, the Lord has a voice in all that he does to his people; so listen to-night. If you listen you will be obliged to say, “What shall I render to the Lord for his benefits to me?”
Listen also to what the Spirit says in your soul. Listen, for it is not till you get your soul quiet that you can hear what the Spirit of God is saying. I have known such a clatter of worldliness or pride, or some other noise, in the soul of man, that the still small voice of the Holy Spirit has been drowned, to the serious detriment of the disciple. Now, I hope you have really done with all your cares and left them outside the Tabernacle to-night, that even the cares about your class in the Sunday-school and about your preaching engagement to-morrow, and everything else, have been put aside, and that now you are just sitting down at Jesus’ feet, and listening. While you listen in that fashion, in lowly spirit at his feet, you are likely to hear him say some word to you which, perhaps, may change the whole tenor of your life. I do not know what God the Lord will speak, but “he will speak peace to his people.” Sometimes he speaketh in such a way that a turbid life has become clear; a life of perplexity has become decided and distinctly happy; and a life of weakness has become a career of strength; and a life that seemed wasted for a while has suddenly sprung up into eminent usefulness or in grace, but what might bring some accusation against: me. The world itself might blame me that my example so little rebukes it; and my very family might charge that I do not bless my household as I should.” That, is right, dear brother, or sister. Sink; go on sinking; be little; be less; be less still; be still less; be least of all; be nothing.
Lift up thine eyes from thy lowly place to him who merits all thy praise. Say to him, “But what art thou, beloved, that thou shouldest have thought of me, or ever the earth was, that thou shouldest take me to thyself to be thine, and then for me shouldest leave the royalties, of heaven for the poverties of earth, and shouldest even go down to the grave that thou mightest lift me up and make me to sit with thee at thy right hand? Oh! what wonders thou hast wrought on me; and I am not worthy of the least of thy mercies; and yet thou hast given me great and unspeakable blessings. If thou hadst only let me be a doorkeeper in thy house, I had been happy; but thou hast set me among princes. If thou hadst given me the crumbs from thy table, as dogs are fed, I had been satisfied; but thou hast put me among the children. If thou hadst said that I might just stand outside the gates of heaven now and then, on gala days, to hear thy voice, it would have been bliss for me; but now thou hast promised me that I shall be with thee where thou art, to behold thy glory and to be. a partaker of it, world without end.” Does not such thoughts as these make you sink? I do not know how it is with you, but, the more I think of the Lord’s mercies, the more I grow downward. I could weep to think that he should lavish so much on one that gives him no return at all, for so it seems to my heart that it is with me. What do you think of yourself? What are your faith, your love, your liberality, your prayers, your works? Dare you call them anything? Do you imagine that the Lord is pleased with your past? Would he not rather say to you, “Thou hast bought me no. sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices; but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins and wearied me with thy iniquities.” So we sit down again at his feet, and from that place we would not wish to rise. Love’s leisure shall be spent in acts of humiliation. We will bow at the feet that were pierced for our redemption.
III. But now, in the third place, here is LOVE LISTENING. She is down there in the place of humility, but she is where she can catch each word as it falls, and she is there with that object. She wishes to hear all that Christ has to say, and she wishes to hear it close at hand. She wants to hear the very tones in which he speaks and the accents with which he delivers each precept. She loves to look up and see that eye which has such meaning in it, and that blessed countenance which speaks as much as the lips themselves; and so she sits there, and she looks with her eyes toward him as a handmaid’s eyes are to her mistress; and then, with her ears and her eyes, she drinks in what he has to say.
Now, beloved, I want you just to do that. Say in prayer now, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth;” and then with your ear open hear what he says by his word. Perhaps there is some text that has come home to your soul to-day. Hear it. Hear it well. It would not be much use for anyone to try to preach a sermon in the centre of the city in the middle of the day. If you stood near St. Paul’s Cathedral, with all that traffic going by, and all that rumbling, roaring, and shouting, why, the big bell itself might speak, and you would hardly hear it. But when it is night, and all is still, then you can hear the city clocks strike; and you might hear a man’s voice even though it was not a very strong one, if he went through the streets, and delivered a message with which he had been entrusted. Well, our blessed Lord often takes advantage of those quiet times when the man has a broken leg, and cannot get to work, but must be still in the hospital, or when the woman is unable to get about the house, to attend to her ordinary duties, but is so helpless that she cannot do anything else but think. Then comes the Lord, and he begins to bring to our remembrance what we have done in days past, and to talk with us as he never has the opportunity of doing at any other time. But it is far more blessed to find time ourselves, so that the Lord will not need to afflict us in order to get us quickly at his feet. Oftentimes the Good Shepherd in caring for the sheep “maketh us lie down,” but he is glad when we come of our own accord that we may rest and listen to his word.
Listen to what he is saying to you by providence. Perhaps a dear child is sick at home, or you have losses and crosses in business. It may not seem to you as if these things come from your loving Lord, but they are perhaps the pressure of his hand to draw you to his side that he may tell you his secret. Perhaps it has been mercy that has come to you in another way. You have been prospered, you have been converted, you have had much joy in your family. Well, the Lord has a voice in all that he does to his people; so listen to-night. If you listen you will be obliged to say, “What shall I render to the Lord for his benefits to me?”
Listen also to what the Spirit says in your soul. Listen, for it is not till you get your soul quiet that you can hear what the Spirit of God is saying. I have known such a clatter of worldliness or pride, or some other noise, in the soul of man, that the still small voice of the Holy Spirit has been drowned, to the serious detriment of the disciple. Now, I hope you have really done with all your cares and left them outside the Tabernacle to-night, that even the cares about your class in the Sunday-school and about your preaching engagement to-morrow, and everything else, have been put aside, and that now you are just sitting down at Jesus’ feet, and listening. While you listen in that fashion, in lowly spirit at his feet, you are likely to hear him say some word to you which, perhaps, may change the whole tenor of your life. I do not know what God the Lord will speak, but “he will speak peace to his people.” Sometimes he speaketh in such a way that a turbid life has become clear; a life of perplexity has become decided and distinctly happy; and a life of weakness has become a career of strength; and a life that seemed wasted for a while has suddenly sprung up into eminent usefulness. Keep thine ear open, Mary. Keep thy ear open, brother, and thou wilt hear what Jesus Christ has to speak.
But now let me say, while you are sitting and listening, you will do well to listen as much to him as to what he has to say, for Christ himself is the Word and his whole life is a voice. Oh, sit you down, sit down and listen. I wish I had not to talk to-night, and could sit down and do it for myself, and just look up at him, God overall, blessed for ever, and yet brother to my soul, a partaker of flesh and blood! This very fact, that He is incarnate, speaks to me, that God is in human flesh speaks comfort to my soul, such as no words could ever convey. God in my nature, God become my brother, my helper, my head, my all! Could not my soul leap out of the body for joy at the incarnation, if there were nothing else but that revealed to us?
Now let me look up again, and see my Lord with the wounds, as Mary did not see him, but as we now may, with hands and feet pierced, with scarred side and marred visage, tokens of the ransom-price paid in his pangs and griefs and death. Is it not wonderful to see thy sin for ever blotted out, and blotted out so fully, and blotted out by such means as this! Why, if there were not an audible word, those wounds are mouths which speak his love. The most eloquent mouths that ever spoke are the wounds of Christ. Listen! listen! Every drop of blood says, “Peace”; every wound says, “Pardon; life, eternal life.”
And now see thy beloved once again. He is risen from the dead, and his wounds bleed no more; yea, he has gone into the glory, and he sits at the right hand of God, even of the Father. It is well for thee, dear brother or sister, that thou canst not. literally sit at his feet in that guise, for if thou couldest only see him as he is, I know what would happen unto thee — even that which happened unto John when he saw him with his head and his hair white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet as if they burned in a furnace. Thou wouldest swoon away. John says, “When I saw him I fell at his feet as dead.” You cannot sit at those feet of glory till you have left this mortal clay, or until it has been made like unto his glorious body; but you may in faith do so, and what will his glory say to you? It will say, “This is what you shall receive; this is what you shall share; this is what you shall see for over and ever.” He will say to you — even to you who mourn your insignificance and in lowliness sit at his feet — “Beloved, thou shalt partake of the glory which the Father gave me, even that which I had with him before the world was. Soon, when a few more moons have waxed and waned, soon thou shalt be with me where I am.” Oh, what bliss is this! Never mind Martha’s frowns; forget her for the moment and keep on sitting at Jesus’ feet. She may come in and grumble, and say that something is neglected; tell her she should not neglect it then; but now your business is not with plates or pots, but to do as your Master has permitted you to do, namely, to sit at his feet and listen to him.
IV. So I close by saying, in the fourth place, that here is LOVE LEARNING. Whilst she listened she was being taught, because as she sat at Jesus’ feet with her heart all warm — sitting in the posture of lowliness — she was, as few could hear them, hearing his words so as to spy out their secret meaning. You know the difference between a man’s voice at a distance, saying something, and his being very near you. You know how much the face can say, and the eyes can say, and the lips can say; and there is many a deaf man that has heard another speak though he has never heard a sound; he has known the meaning by the very motion of the lips and the gleams of the countenance. Ah, and if you get into such near fellowship with Christ as to sit at his feet, you will get his meaning. When the letter kills others, you will see the secret meaning that is hidden within, and you will rejoice.
She got at his meaning, and then she was hearing the words so as to drink in the meaning. “They sit down at thy feet,” says the old Scripture, “every one shall receive of thy words.” Beloved, that is a great promise — to receive of his words. Some people hear the words, but do not receive them, but there sat Mary where, as the words fell, they dropped upon her as snowflakes drop into the sea and are absorbed. So each word of Jesus dropped into her soul, and became part and parcel of her nature, they fired and filled her very being.
What she learnt she remembered. We see love learning what she will treasure up. Mary never forgot what she heard that day. It remained with her for ever; it seasoned her whole life. The words of her Master were with her all the days she was watching, all the days she was waiting, she was waiting after they had been spoken. They kept her watching and waiting, till at last love’s instinct told her that the time was come, and then she went upstairs where she had put away the choice ointment for which she spent her money. She had laid it up and kept it till the time should come, and just before the Saviour’s death and burial she fetched it down, the gift which she had hoarded up for him, and she poured it cut in adoration.
As she sat at his feet, she resolved to love him more and more. Love was learning to love better. As she had listened and learnt, the learning had crystallized itself into resolves to be, among women, the most devoted to him. Perhaps, little by little, she had laid by this great price which she had paid for the spikenard. Be it as it may, it was dear to her, and she brought it down when the time was come, and put it all on him with a joyous liberality and love. Well, now, I want you just to learn of Jesus after that fashion, and, by-and-by, when the time comes, you, too, may do some deed for Christ that shall fill the house in which you dwell with sweet perfume; yea, shall fill the earth with it, so that, if man scents it not, yet God himself shall be delighted with the fragrance you pour, out of love, upon his Son.
We are going to have the communion, here are the emblems of his blessed body and blood; and I hope they will help us to have nothing to do but to think of him; nothing to do but to be lowly in his presence; nothing to do but to listen to his words and to drink in his teaching.
But there are some here that do not love him. It may be that God will lay you low by affliction in order to bring you to the feet of Jesus. Perhaps he will allow disaster and disappointment to overtake you in the world, to win you to himself. If any of you have had this experience, or are passing through it just now, do not trifle with it, I pray you; for, while we are in this life, if the Lord comes to us to remind us of our sin, he does it in the greatness of his mercy, and in order that he may bring salvation to us. It will be quite another thing, in the next life, if you die unrepentant and unforgiven. Then you may indeed dread the coming of God to bring your sin to remembrance; but while you are here, if the Lord is so speaking to you, incline your ear, and hearken to his voice, however harshly it may seem to sound in your ears. Even if he should strip thee, be glad to be stripped by him. If he should wound thee, and bruise thee, willingly give thyself up to be wounded and bruised by him; yea, even if he should slay thee, rejoice to be slain by him, for remember that he clothes those whom he strips, he heals those whom he wounds, and he makes alive those whom he kills. So it is a blessed thing to undergo all those terrible operations of law-work at the hands of the Most High, for it is in that way that he comes to those whom he means to bless.
I cannot preach to you, for the time has gone; but, do you know, I think one of the most dreadful things that can ever be said of man is that he does not love Christ. I should be sorry to enter on my list of friends the man that did not love his mother; yea, I would not call him a man. Lead is that heart to every noble sentiment that loves not her that bare him; and yet there might be some justifiable cause to excuse even that. But not to love the Christ, the God that stooped to bleed for man — this is inexcusable. I dare not to-night utter, as my own, what Paul said, but, very pointedly and solemnly, I would remind you who love not Christ of it. Paul says, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema Maranatha” — cursed at the coming. Sometimes when I think of my Lord, and my heart grows hot with admiration of his self-denying love, I think I could almost invoke the imprecation on the head of him that does not, would not, could not love the Christ of God. But better than that I will ask his blessing for you, and I say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
Here our sermon closes, and may God’s blessing rest on it.