"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
"Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"—John 21:15
No word here of the erring disciple's past
faithlessness—his guilty cowardice—unmentioned;—his base denial—his
oaths and curses, and treacherous desertion—all unmentioned! The memory
of a threefold denial is suggested, and no more, by the threefold
question of unutterable tenderness, "Simon son of John, do you truly love
me?"—When Jesus finds His disciples sleeping at the gate of Gethsemane, He
rebukes them; but how is the rebuke disarmed of its poignancy by the merciful
apology which is added—"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!"
How different from their unkind insinuation regarding Him, when,
in the vessel or Tiberias, "He was asleep"—"Master, don't you care that we
perish!"—The woman of Samaria is full of earthliness, carnality, sectarianism,
guilt. Yet how gently the Savior speaks to her—how forbearingly, yet
faithfully, He directs the arrow of conviction to that seared and hardened
conscience, until He lays it bleeding at His feet! Truly, "He will not break
the bruised reed—He will not quench the smoking flax." By "the goodness
of God," He would lead to repentance. When others are speaking of merciless
violence, He can dismiss the most guilty of profligates with the words
"Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more."
How many have an unholy pleasure in finding a brother in
the wrong—blazing abroad his failings; administering rebuke, not in gentle
forbearance and kindly admonition, but with harsh and impatient severity! How
beautifully did Jesus unite intense sensibility to sin, along with tenderest
compassion for the sinner, showing in this that "He knows our frame!" Many a
sinner needs gentleness in chastisement. The reverse would crush a sensitive
spirit, or drive it to despair. Jesus tenderly "considers" the case of those
He disciplines, "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb." In the picture of the
good shepherd bearing home the wandering sheep, He illustrated by parable what
He had often and again taught by His own example. No word of needless
harshness or upbraiding uttered to the erring wanderer! Ingratitude is too
deeply felt to need rebuke. In silent love, "He lays it on His shoulders
rejoicing."
Reader! seek to mingle gentleness in all your rebukes; bear
with the infirmities of others; make allowance for constitutional frailties;
never say harsh things, if kind things will do as well; do not unnecessarily
lacerate with recalling former delinquencies. In reproving another, let us
rather feel how much we need reproof ourselves. "Consider yourself," is a
searching Scripture motto for dealing with an erring brother. Remember your
Lord's method of silencing fierce accusation—"Let him that is without sin cast
the first stone." Moreover, anger and severity are not the successful means of
reclaiming the backslider, or of melting the obdurate. Like the smooth
stones with which David smote Goliath, gentle rebukes are generally the
most powerful. The old fable of the traveler and his cloak has a moral here as
in other things. The genial sunshine will effect its removal sooner than the
rough tempest. It was said of Leighton, that "he rebuked faults so mildly,
that they were never repeated, not because the admonished were afraid, but
ashamed to do so.