Christianity as Bhakti Marga

And Jesus answereth them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, ZI say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, tt abideth by ttselt alone; but if it die, tt beareth much fruit. He that loveth his lite loseth tt; and he that hateth his lite in this world shall keep it unto lite eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, hint will the Father honours Now ts my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me trom this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour Father, glority thy name. There came therefore a voice out ot heaven, saying, I have both gloritied zt, and will glorify it again. The multitude therefore, that stood by, and heard tt, said that tt had thundered: others said, An angel hath spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice hath not come for my sake, but for your sakes. Now ts the judgement of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And J, tt I be lifted up trom the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this he said, stgnitying by what manner of dealh he should die. The multitude theretore answered him, We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man? Jesus theretore said unto them, Yet a little while ts the light among you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not: and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe on the light, that ye may become sons of light.

In explaining the Johannine teaching on the Atonement, Abbot says: ‘The metaphors for describing this

giving of eternal life through the uplifted Son of Man upon the cross are various. Life may be regarded negatively as deliverance from sin. In that aspect, our burden of sin may be described as falling from our shoulders as we kneel before the cross, or as taken. from our shoulders as we kneel before the cross or as taken from us and nailed to it with the crucified one. But John probably looks at life positively, as a union with Christ, who, when we look to Him with the eye of faith, draws us to, or into, Himself, or passes into us

that we may pass into Him.’* If this view of Johannine teaching is correct, is John the only mystic who thinks thus or are there others? Does the mystic life inevitably lead to a different understanding of the death of Christ from that which occurs in other types of Christian experience?

According to the Fourth Evangelist, the death of Jesus is His glorification. The word ‘glory’ is a favourite one with him. He tells us that by making the water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus manifested His glory. The ‘ sickness’ of Lazarus was in order that the Son of God might be glorified.2 But the main occasion for the glorification of Jesus was His passion and death.* It is difficult to understand whether the word ‘glory’ should be interpretedin a purely moral sense or whether it should be taken to imply any of the external splendour which mystics have seen in their visions of God. Such light and splendour are, of course, of no value by themselves except that they show in an impressive way the exceeding greatness and purity of God. We know that the word can be traced back to the days of the ancient Jewish seers, canonical* and uncanonical,” who beheld God as light and splendour. Evenif John did not keep in mind any of the external association of the word in mystic literature with light and magnificence, he certainly did not empty it of all its poetic significance. There seems to vibrate in it a sense of exaltation, beauty, joy and honour. We are surprised when we hear Jesus applying such a word to describe the pain and agony on the cross. It seems appropriate when applied to such a miracle as that at the wedding feast in Cana in which with dramatic impressiveness He manifested His power. It would have appeared still more natural if it had been used to describe Him when He stilled the raging storm or when He stood on the mount of Transfiguration bathed in heavenly light. But in the Fourth Gospel Jesus constantly speaks of the tragic events of His passion as being His glory. Not that He ignored the pain before Him. In the very passage we are considering we have the pathetic words: ‘Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.’ But Jesus overcomes this rising despondency with the declaration: ‘But for this cause came I into this hour.’ The agony in the garden of Gethsamene bears witness — to the deadly struggle in His heart. But even while shrinking from death, Jesus looks forward to it not merely with calmness but with the conviction that it will be His hour of exaltation. ‘When ye have liited up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me.; he hath not left me alone; for I do always the things that are pleasing to him.* ‘ Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again,” ‘But now I come to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”* The glorification of Jesus, as already noted, applies not merely to His death, but to the whole series.of events which took place at the end of His life. Till the twelfth chapter of the Gospel ‘the hour’ is not spoken of as having come. But from that point it has come. And as the Gospel says that the Spirit was not given before the glorification, we understand that His resurrection was part of His hour of glory.’ Perhaps it was because the resurrection of Jesus _ was indissolubly linked in His mind and in the mind of the Evangelist with His death that both these events were regarded as His glorification. The death of Jesus, a tragedy taken by itself, is an occasion for glory and exaltation when it is considered in relation to the life which came out of it. The mystery still remains but it is now emptied of its gloom.

It is evident from the next verse that the connexion between His life and death was always present to the mind of Jesus. ‘ Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die,. it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep. it unto life eternal.’ The grain of wheat sinking to the earth apparently dead but sprouting into newness of life is a symbol at once of the historic death of Jesus followed by His renewed manifestation of life, and of the death to sin of the devotee followed by a new spiritual life. The historic death, followed by life, which took place nineteen hundred years ago is perpetually repeated in. the souls of bhaktas. Life, with John, is generally the life of fellowship with Christ. It is this which is of eternal and abiding significance. ‘This kind of existence is called life because it realizes in the highest degree all the possibilities inherent in life. Only ‘he who lives in Christ truly lives.. But how do we enter into life through the death of Christ?

The secret of attaining life with Christ through His death is explained in the next verse: ‘If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will the Father honour.’ He who would find life in Christ must follow Him altogether. And as His intensest moments were those spent on the cross, the Christian must identify himself with the suffering Lord and even share in Hisagony. Only such entire and willing identity with Jesus can lead to life eternal. The exhortation to follow Jesus occurs in different contexts. In other places it may mean a readiness to carry out His precepts aud to do His will. In our present context, with the solemn end in full sight, the exhortation must mean something more than a willingness to obey His words. It must imply our willingness to follow Him with joy in His suffering.

This conviction has powerfully inspired some of the finest souls in the Christian Church. Francis> of Assisi experienced the ‘ stigmata.’ With such intense sympathy and deep agony did he contemplate the wounds of Jesus that they appeared in his own body Julian of Norwich has told us that she fell very ill, and desired to suffer with the Lord Jesus. ‘I saw with ©

bodily sight in the face of the crucifix that hung before me, on the which I gazed continually, a part of His passion: despite, spitting and sullying, and buffetting, and many languoring pains, more than I can tell, and often changing of colour. And one time I saw half the face, beginning at the ear, overgone with dry blood till it covered to the mid face. And, after that the other half was covered on the samewise.’* The Imitation of Christ exhorts us thus: ‘ Put thee therefore forward as a good and true servant of Christ to bear manly the cross of thy Lord crucified for thee through love. Make thee ready to suffer many contrary things and diverse incommodities in this wretched life: for so he shall be with thee wherever thou be and so thou shalt find him wherever thou be

hid.” It is needless to multiply instances to show that all through the centuries Christian mystics have earnestly sought to realize oneness with the suffering Lord by participating, often literally, in suffering.*

This experience imparts a unique character to ‘Christian mysticism which becomes a distinctively moral fact. Communion with our Lord is made possible not by emotional fervour, nor by flights of speculation, or even of intuition, but by the difficult and yet joyous discipline of walking along His path of suffering. The attainment of salvation by suffering is not a specially Christian idea; the moral quality of suffering is. The

1 Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, London 1917 p: 21.

2 The Imitation of Christ, chapter xii.

highest faculties of man are trained in the school of Christ’s suffering. The supreme power of God’s love, which forgives and redeems, exerts its irresistable influence. Lofty ideals alone are considered worthwhile and accepted. Hardships are endured with joy and difficulties faced in the pursuit of these ideals. The spirit of unselfishness and service is imparted in a generous measure to the eager soul. ‘The oneness with the Lord reached through such discipline, severe yet happy, must necessarily be different from the oneness. realized in a flash of insight or in a moment of ecstacy. There is not only a difference in the nature of the fellowship attained but also in its depth and intensity. We know how firmly fire welds two pieces of iron: We know how friends, who have passed through the same troubles and calamities, are more closely knit together than those who have been intimate only amidst life’s abundant joys. Sometimes, though indeed rarely, we come across two men whose love is thus. forged on the anvil of suffering. Someone is suddenly called upon to face public obloquy and the penalties. of the law, because he stands accused of a great crime. He loses his work and his career is closed to him. Instead of requiring less money than before, he requires more in order to justify himself in the eyes of the law and to put up a defence, but he has no resources of his. own. ‘The friends who gathered around him in the days of his prosperity abandon him, some meanly because they cannot get any more from him, and some with self-righteous moral indignation. But some real friend steps in and disregarding his own name and comfort, works night and day to save him. Snch a’ real friend. cares neither for what others think nor for what he has himself to pay, but in an entirely selfless spirit endeavours to give all the help that is necessary. Need it be said that these two friends will be knit together for life with the strongest possible. ties? ‘The one who helps so nobly and to such. an enormous extent has nothing to gain, except of course the great joy of seeing his friend on his feet again, but everything to lose. His help is not: given for any thought of self whatsoever but finds its. roots in the very depths of love. The one in trouble is deeply impressed with his friend’s unselfishness and profound love and responds to it with all eagerness. To this is added the spell of emotion which on such occasions comes mightily over men. Such analysis can never fully interpret the magic and might of love but may give us some idea. of fellowship in suffering.

We may pursue this analogy into the range of mystic experience and say that the intimacy between a. bhakta and his God, who have passed together through suffering, is exceedingly strong. It is only in the Fourth Gospel we are significantly told that, in His hour of utmost sorrow, Jesus entrusted His mother and His beloved disciple—no doubt the two persons whom He loved most dearly on earth—to each other’s care. In suffering love finds its fullest expression. But it may be said that while hanging on the cross, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.’' Jesus might have been expected in His terrible suffering and sorrow to realize the presence of the Father even more intensely than on other occasions. Either Jesus uttered those words or He did not. From the fact that Mark and Matthew have recorded them we suppose that they actually came from the lips of Jesus. Apparently then Jesus did experience a momentary sense of desertion by the Father. When suffering is regarded as cementing the union of two persons it does not mean that such union never undergoes even for a moment the feeling of separation. Any occasional experience of separation does not do away with the fact of the profound union. The oneness of the Father with the Son must have been deeply felt by Jesus in spite of His passing emotion. For Jesus Himself, as reported by the Fourth Evangelist, declares: ‘Behold the hour cometh, yea is come that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.’* There is another point of more importance. The Evangelist puts the Farewell Discourses? on the eve of the crucifixion. During these critical hours Jesus dwells upon the theme of His oneness with the Father and of His disciples’ oneness with Him with unwonted fulness and vigour. However much amplified by the later reflection of the Evangelist, the discourses no doubt, mirror an hour of special fellowship the sense of Jesus’ oneness with the Father reaching an extraordinary strength in view of the storm that was gathering.

With the long history, of Christian asceticism before us, we may well doubt the ways of the medizval mystics who were eager to enter into close fellowship with Jesus by imposing upon themselves penances and mortifications. But self-inflicted suffering apart, there is abundant suffering for those who would follow Christ’ and every Christian is called upon to pass through it in the spirit of the Master so that his union with Him may become deeper and fuller. To some comes the suffering of poverty when, day after day, the pinch is felt from half-satisfied hunger. Others may have to bear with numerous disappointments which make life dreary; yet others may have to fight with failing strength which at any time may end in painful disease and death or may become afflicted with chronic ijlhealth which may keep them all day long in pain and sorrow. Others are called upon to face social persecution and to fight their way towards their ideal by trampling upon the susceptibilities of their closest friends. Whatever the character of the suffering, everyone of us has his share of it when we really follow Christ without going out of our way to court it. The spirit in which we pass through it is most important. When we go through it bravely and gladly with the earnest desire to attain unity with our suffering Lord, we shall indeed realize that we are entering into that rich fellowship in a way which would not have been possible for us otherwise.

It is exceedingly difficult for the Hindu religious consciousness to grasp the idea that God suffers with us and that through common suffering our fellowship with Him becomes deeper and richer. This belief runs counter to most Indian thought. The great modern sage Ramakrishna-Paramahamsa said:

‘When the shell of an ordinary coconut is pierced through, the nail enters the kernel of the nut too. But in the case of the dry nut, the kernel becomes separate from the shell, and so when the shell is pierced the kernel is not touched. Jesus was like the dry nut, ie., His inner soul was separate from His physical shell, and consequently the sufferings of the body did not affect Him.’ '

There have been many thinkers even in the Christian Church who have found it hard to believe that the Son of God really suffered on the cross. They have tried in different ways to explain away the reality of the crucifixion; His suffering, they have maintained, was only apparent: but the Christian Church has never accepted their position, condemning it as Docetism.”

Why is it difficult for the Hindu to grasp the truth about suffering? The fundamental reason no doubt is. the idea that God is joy. Zhe Upantsads declare again and again that Brahman is Ananda. The followers of Sankara who maintain that God has no qualities. interpret Ananda as the negation of pain and sorrow. According to them God has no qualities and therefore Ananda can refer to no positive quality which He has but can only mean the absence of suffering and sorrow..

-2°See art, on ‘ Docetism’ in the Axcyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,

The followers of Ramanuja understand Ananda to mean the possession of positive calm and peace. God cannot be moved by the changes in human lives. He cannot be at the mercy of the various tides which flow through men’s affairs.

“As the sun, the eye of the entire world, is not touched by the external impurities seen by the eyes, so the one immanent Self of all things is not touched by the sorrow of the world, for He is outside it.’ *

It would be possible to quote from Hindu religious literature rare passages which speak of the suffering of God. The Ramayana declares that Rama becomes deeply grieved with the sorrows of men.” Govinda- Raja, the most famous of the commentators on the Ramayana, finds in the verse depths of meaning.

““Of men” means “‘ not merely his mother and others.” Who then are included? All men whether they are rich or poor, whether they belong to the twice born castes or not. ‘‘ With the sorrows,’ with whatever sorrow whether it is insignificant or significant. “Deeply” does not mean “‘as much as the man grieves.” What then does it mean? Like an elephant sunk in mud, he becomes as deeply immersed as possible in grief as is fitting with his magnanimity. And he does not forget it with the lapse of time.’ *

The Tamil Bhakta Kulagékhara Alvar believed in suffering with his suffering Lord. He was a king and was filled with Bhakti for Rama. It was a source of great delight to him to hear the Ramayana expounded.

One day the passage where Rama left his wife Sita behind and went out alone to fight. with his enemies was expounded. The Alvar forgot that the incident took place long ago and thought within himself: “My Lord is in trouble. It is not fitting that I should fail to help him in any way I can.’ So he summoned his armies and with them set out to help Rama. Not understanding the meaning of this, the people stood confused. But the wise teacher who had been expounding perceived its reason and said to the Alvar: ‘Singlehanded Rama defeated all his enemies and returned to his cottage safe and joined his loving Sita.’ On hearing this, the Alvar was filled with joy and gave up the idea of an expedition. This is indeed a remarkable case of participation in the pain and agony of the incarnate God. One of this Alyar’s hymns is a lament of Dagaratha, full of piercing grief, for his son Rama who was in exile in a forest.”

But Kulagékhara Alvar seems to have been an exception. Neither the idea that God suffers nor the idea that we suffer with Him has really found a place in Hindu thought. On the contrary, the conception of God as joy has been dear to the heart of India. But is it right to say that God rejoices with men but does not suffer with them? God is love and what is love if it keeps separate from man in any particular circumstance? Why do we revere the love of a mother as the highest expression of love in human life? It is not merely because she is with her children and feeds them and plays with them and teaches them. Others may do these things and yet they would never show the power of human love at its best. But when the critical hour arrives and a child is guilty of some grave moral lapse the mother’s heart goes out to the child with an agony which passes expression and which sometimes, though not always, works out by sheer force of sacrifice and suffering a great change in character. A mother’s love will not be complete without this readiness to sacrifice. Of course she has joy in her children and basks in the sunshine of their smiles but she has also the deeply rooted love which goes out to them in their hour of trouble. If God has qualities and if He is intimately related to us, how can we draw the line and say that beyond it no suffering of man will affect Him? If God is unconcerned about the world, it would be true to suppose that He has no share in what happens to us. But if, as we strongly believe, God is most intimately related to human souls and the highest bliss consists in the realization and enjoyment of this intimate relation, it must necessarily iollow that He will be with us in the hour of dire need, whether it is merely physical or whether it takes the more tragic form of moral failure. Everyone who emphasizes the idea of God as joy must consider this. Almost all men, of whatever creed or nationality, instinctively turn to God in their hour of need. At such times no doctrine can prevent them from lifting up their hearts in prayer to God. Is not this general experience —there are always exceptions—sufficient testimony for the fact that God is touched by our sorrows and responds to our needs? In making suffering and sacrifice central Christianity certainly proceeds upon a fundamental experience, lf we do not understand this but insist that no Divine Being could have been really crucified, we may bolt the heart’s door against the gracious entrance of the crucified Jesus.

There is another doctrine of Indian thought which makes it difficult for the Hindu to accept this interpretation of suffering. Centuries ago the thinkers of India, perplexed and. bewildered by the suffering and inequality in the world, offered the doctrine of Karma as the solution of these difficulties. The doctrine of Karma has indeed become a most vital part of the thought of our people. Its grim understanding of the realities of life has permeated the lowest layers of the Indian consciousness. In the light of Karma all that we have been saying in this chapter has no meaning. Any suffering that we are forced to pass through is rooted in causes: beyond our ken. Our present life is bound up with innumerable lives which we have already completed and its character is determined by what we have done in them. The idea therefore of our following the Master in His way of suffering and of our realizing our oneness with Him through such fellowship has no attraction. But to the Christian the suffering through which he passes gladly is vitally related to the decisions and actions of his present life. The suffering we are called on to pass through is not determined by remote and unknowable causes rooted in our past lives but is very often due to what we ourselves have done. There is, of course, a great deal of suffering in the world due to cataclysms.

in nature or in history. Here we are not concerned with understanding these. But the troubles which come to us in following our Lord are what we have in mind. When we resolve to seek the fellowship of our Lord we at the same time resolve to walk along a hard path, for He was ‘a man of sorrcws and was acquainted with grief.’ Are we drawn to the figure of Christ? Has His teaching laid hold of us? Has the spirit which indwelt Him come to abide in us to lead us in the path of love and service? Then inevitably we shall have to face opposition and trouble as He did, though in a very different measure and form, and men wil! hate us and heap trouble for us. But this suffering will be turned to joy, for through it our union with Christ will become closer and more intimate.

To continue the exposition of our passage. The union with Christ, cemented by participation in His suffering and death, is no transcendental experience; participation in the death of Christ does not take the bhakta to the serene heights of philosophy or ecstasy but keeps him in this world with its temptations and trials, its obligations and duties. ‘Now is the judgement of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.’ What is this judgement? It cannot be the last judgement described in apocalyptic literature. For it is said to take place now. It would be in harmony with the rest of the Johannine teaching to suppose that the judge- ment spoken of here is an internal judgement, a greatly modified law of karma, which inevitably brings about certain consequences. He who beholds the uplifted. Christ and allows himself to be drawn into Him has thereby set out on the path which will lead him away from wrong doing and sin. Not that he will be incapable of sinning nor even that he will never sin but sin will cease to attract him. The attraction of the cross will be so powerful that the attraction of sin will cease and the prince of this world will be cast out. The reference to the prince of the world being cast out seems to imply that there is a certain solidarity in the way in which the death of Christ operates against the sin of the world. It is not merely a sin here and a sin there that is cast out but the entire power of evil. So powerful and so tremendous is the efficacy of the death of Christ that the whole mass of evil ceases to be. This corporate reaction against the whole volume of evil, besides being in consonance with the Johannine teaching about the solidarity of mystic experience, puts out of the question any random and haphazard, and therefore incomplete, operations against evil.

But this result does not come about without man’s effort. The cross of Christ is no talisman. The multitude, perplexed by the teaching about the lifting up of the Son of Man, raised a question: ‘We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’ ‘To this Jesus replies;

“Yet a little while is the light among you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not: and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe on the light, that ye may become sons of light.” This ought to be earnestly taken to heart by every one. We should not merely comfort ourselves with the thought of the eternal and abiding Christ. He does live to-day and move among us with power as of old. But neither He nor His death are of any avail to us unless we strive genuinely to walk in His light. The life and death of Christ are not meant only for another world. The eternal now is of tremendous significance and power. The Christian should constantly walk in the light of Christ as he is a son of light.

We should consider an important passage from the First Epistle of John which supplements and makes. clear the teaching given in these verses. ‘God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not speak the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If wé confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness.’ We realize with poignancy the shame and sorrow that have come to us from sin. Try as we will, our fight for goodness is not always a victorious one. Again and again we fall victims to the temptations that come to us. The frequent and disheartening failures of the moral life continually fill us with grief and there are times when we stand bewildered before the helpless way in which we surrender to evil. These successive moral tragedies are no matters of passing import. They accumulate into a terrible burden and oppress the soul by its constantly increasing weight and terror. We are overwhelmed with the power of the sins of the past and as we contemplate the future we are afraid that we might have to contend, often in a losing battle, with new forms and forces of evil. But the death of ‘Christ reveals clearly that the sins of the past which terrify us and which form a burden are forgiven by our Father out of His infinite and gracious love and that we are given a new strength to contend with the powers of evil. The incubus of the past is removed and we are set at liberty to walk in the light free from its oppres- Sive sense.

In this all too brief exposition of a great theme, no attempt has been made to understand the relation of the cross of Christ to the mind of God, We have found how the sacrifice on Calvary draws men into closer bonds of friendship with Christ imparting to them forgiveness and strength and all the other gifts which love can give. But we must consider in great humility and reverence what value, according to John, the cross has for God. That John recognizes the supreme importance of the cross for God is evident from certain profound verses which occur in the Gospel and Epistles. John the Baptist points to Jesus and proclaims, ‘ Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In his First Epistle, we read: ‘If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.’* Again: ‘ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to ke the propitiation for our sins.’ ” Theological controversy has raged around these and other verses in the New Testament which speak of the cross of Calvary asa sacrifice: What is the sacrifice? To whom is it made? For what purpose? These and other questions have been endlessly debated. The sacrifice on Calvary is the uttermost expression of the love of God. God has always loved man, but love is not complete until it issues in sacrifice, in the uttermost giving up of itself This sacrifice took place on the cross. There is a peculiarly weighty significance in the words with which the Evangelist opens his account of the last days of Jesus: ‘Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.’ * Through this great sacrifice, God has fulfilled._Himself and, if we may say so with reverence, has realized to the full the riches of His love. Without some supreme” expression like that on the cross, even the love of God might have been incomplete. -The sacrifice of Calvary is the perfecting and rounding out of His great love which so graciously forgives and saves. 1 John i. 29, 2 1.John ii. 1,2:

The Christian cannot content himself with merely - contemplating the sufferings of Christ. ‘There is indeed much to be gained by reverently directing our mind to realize the profound agony which our Lord experienced during His passion. Such a devout dwelling upon His agony and sorrow is sure to exert a wholesome influence on us and to change us for the better. But such contemplation is not enough. We have rather to unite ourselves with Christ in His suffering.

The supreme example of such identity with the sufferings of Christ is given to us by Paul. Paul counted all things to be loss in order that he ‘may “know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death.”* Indeed he actually rejoiced in his sufferings which, as every one who has read about Paul knows, were most abundant and supremely hard, and filled “up on his part that which was lacking of the afflictions of Christ.’* Paul did not merely realize with a devout imagination the agony of the Lord, nor did he add to his own suffering by purposely and deliberately going out of his way in its quest, but he passionately loved Christ and sought to spread His message far and wide. In seeking to make the power of Christ’s love effective in himself and in others, he had to face much trouble. He was misunderstood, criticized, beaten, imprisoned and persecuted. But he did not flinch or whittle down his message or give up his work because of the persecution. Through the anguish and pain of it all he knew with joy that if he had to suffer a great deal, his Master had suffered before him and suffered intensely. This experience made him realize his oneness with Christ in a wonderful way. He did not achieve any merit by his suffering, but by passing through it gladly, he made himself a partaker of the glorious love that was shown by Christ on Calvary and was united with Him. Fellowship works from both ends. While it is true that Paul sought to become united with Christ in His suffering, his efforts would have been futile if Christ Himself had not out of His great love taken Paul into His fellowship.

This then is the meaning of becoming united with Christ through participation in His suffering. He has suffered on Calvary showing to us unmistakably the wonder and the depth of the Father’s love for us. As we realize this love for ourselves and set out to make it known to others all sorts of difficulties will come in our way. The more eager we are to make the spirit and ideal of Christ work in those little spheres over which we may have any influence the greater the difficulties will be. We ought not by any means to give up our message or its completeness in order to make our path smooth and easy. But we should proclaim the Gospel with all earnestness and sincerity and in its fulness as far as we understand it. The trouble which comes to us will be of various kinds and degrees, the mental anguish of choice and failure, the criticism and hostile action of others, the necessity to reduce our wants to a minimum and to live at the point of selfsacrifice and, in these days very rarely, physical pain and suffering. We should pass through all these kinds and degrees of suffering with joy, realizing that our Lord has suffered before us with greater intensity and with no blame on Himself. We shall not work our way into union with Him by any particular suffering through which we pass or even by any particular spirit in which we undergo the suffering’ that inevitably comes in following Him. But such a discipline will help us to accept more readily and with clearer understanding the offer of His foregiveness and fellowship with Himself ‘which He has made to us once for all on the cross of Calvary with unlimited generosity and supreme love.