Easter Eyes. Looking to Jesus
F W Boreham on The Eyes of Easter
On Good Friday F W Boreham looks with Easter eyes with illustrations from Charles Spurgeon and Francis of Assisi.
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On Good Friday we turn to Calvary with Easter Eyes. Bunyan tells us how it is done. When Christian came to the Cross and was welcomed by the Three Shining Ones, 'he looked – and looked – and looked again!' Three looks; but three different looks! The first was the look Positive; the second was the look Comparative; the third was the look Superlative.
I
The Churches of the world have been celebrating the centenary of the conversion of C.H. Spurgeon. It was a snowy Sunday in the middle of last century. As the caretaker fought his way through the storm from his cottage to the chapel in Artillery Street, Colchester (which, to my delight, I myself had the privilege of visiting a few years back), he wondered whether, on such a wild and wintry day, anyone would venture out. He unbolted the chapel doors and lit the furnace under the stove.
Half an hour later the preacher glanced nervously round upon three hundred empty seats. Nearly empty, but not quite, for there were a dozen or fifteen of the regular worshippers present, and there was a boy sitting under the gallery who, intending to worship at a distant sanctuary, had been driven by the storm to shelter in this one.
People who had braved such a morning deserved all the help that could be given them, and the strange boy under the gallery ought not to be sent back into the storm feeling that there was nothing in the service for him. And so the preacher determined to make the most of the opportunity, and he did.
The boy under the gallery! A marble tablet now adorns the wall near the seat which he occupied that snowy day. The inscription records that, that very morning, the boy sitting under the gallery was converted! He was only fifteen, and he died at fifty-seven. But, in the course of the intervening years, he preached the gospel to millions and led thousands upon thousands into the kingdom and service of Jesus Christ.
It has often been said that, as with the leaves of the forest, no two conversions are alike; each has its own distinctive features. Yet, as with the leaves of the forest, all conversions answer to a general pattern. However dissimilar the externals, in essence they are very similar.
II
Can history present two conversion stories that stand in more dramatic contrast, the one with the other, and yet that more closely resemble each other, than those of Francis d'Assisi and C.H. Spurgeon?
London was hardly larger than a modern village in the time of Francis d'Assisi and wild boars roamed in the forests that then covered the sites of our great modern cities. Whilst King John was signing Magna Carta, Francis was at Rome seeking recognition for his brotherhood of friars. It was the age of the Crusaders and the Troubadours. Yet, as I read the moving record of his great spiritual experience, I forget that I have invaded a period in which English history was only beginning to unfold.
The lithe and graceful figure of Francis, with his dark, eloquent, but sparkling eyes, his wealthy shock of jet black hair, his soft, rich, sonorous voice and gay but faultless attire, was the soul and centre of every youthful revel. He was, as Sir James Stephen says, foremost in every feat of arms, first in every triumph of scholarship and the gayest figure in the festival. 'The brightest eyes in Assisi, dazzled by so many graces, and the most reverend brows there, acknowledging such early wisdom, were alike bent with admiration towards him.' His bewitching personality, his rollicking gaiety, his brooding thoughtfulness, his dauntless courage and his courtly ways swept all men off their feet; he had but to lead and they instinctively followed; he commanded and they unquestionably obeyed.
And the story of his conversion? Come with me! As, with your face towards Spello, you follow the windings of the Via Francesca, you will find the little church of St. Damian's on the slope of the hill outside the city walls. It is reached by a short walk over a stony path, shaded with olive trees, amid odours of lavender and rosemary. 'Standing on the top of a hillock, the entire plain is visible through a curtain of cypresses and pines which seem to be trying to hide the humble hermitage and set up an ideal barrier between it and the noisy world.' Francis was particularly fond of this wooded walk and the sanctuary to which it led. In pensive moments, when it was more than usually evident to him that, with all his frolics, he had yet to discover the fountain of true gladness, he turned his face this way.
In this little chapel in the woods, there was a crucifix that held a strange fascination for Francis. The thorn-crowned face was irresistibly beautiful; the sad eyes wonderfully appealing. Francis was one day bowing before this crucifix when, suddenly, everything seemed to fade from before his eyes. The church, the altar, the crucifix itself, all vanished. He was alone with his living and glorified Lord! In that transforming moment, as Canon Adderley says, Christ became the centre of his being, the soul of his soul. He looked and looked and looked again; feasting his spirit on the vision of the Saviour who had died for his redemption. He vowed that, in all the days to come, he would spend and be spent in His service.
Francis never forgot that moment. His whole soul overflowed with the intensity of his affection for his Saviour. To the end of his days he could never think of the Cross without tears.
III
The conversion of Francis was effected six hundred years before the conversion of Mr. Spurgeon. Yet that conversion in the ruined church of St. Damian's in Italy is the very counterpart of that later conversion in the little chapel at Artillery Street, Colchester.
'Look to Jesus!' cried the preacher that Sunday morning. 'Look to Jesus! See, He sweats great drops of blood; he hangs upon the Cross; He dies – and He dies for you! Look to Jesus, young man, look to Jesus, look and live!'
'I looked', says Mr. Spurgeon, 'I looked that very moment and was saved!'
'Francis looked to the Crucified', says his biographer, in narrating the incident that transformed his hero's life. 'It was a look of faith; a look of love; a look that had all his soul in it; a look which did not attempt to investigate but which was content to receive. He looked, and, looking, entered into life.'
You can take the sentences from the Life of Francis and transfer them to the Life of Spurgeon, or vice versa, and they will fit their new environment with the most perfect historical accuracy.
Now, somewhere midway between the time of Francis and the time of Spurgeon stands the sturdy and satisfying figure of John Bunyan. And, in his Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan paints a vivid and unforgettable picture that, brushing aside the external trappings of this medieval scene in Italy, and the non-essential drapery of this nineteenth century happening in Essex, unifies and harmonizes and coordinates the two striking stories. It is the passage that tells of Christian's arrival at the Cross. Here it is:
Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and he said with a merry heart: He hath given me rest by His sorrow and life by His death! Then he stood still for a while to look and wonder: for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks. Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold three Shining Ones came to him and saluted him with 'Peace be to thee'. So the first said to him, 'Thy sins are forgiven'; the second stripped him of his rags and clothed him with change of raiment; the third also set a mark in his forehead and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bade him look on as he ran. So they went on their way. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy and went on singing.
'I looked and looked and looked again, says Bunyan's pilgrim. Three looks: the look that was good, the look that was better and the look that was best. Bunyan himself analyzes those three looks.
'I looked'; it was the Look Positive; the Look of Astonishment.
'And looked'; it was the Look Comparative; the Look of Wonder.
'And looked again!' It was the Look Superlative; the Look of Faith.
The first look was a look of Surprise: 'for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his burden.' The Cross never finds its rightful place in a man's heart until, as in the experiences of Francis and of Spurgeon, it takes his breath away. It becomes life's supreme and most bewildering astonishment. Love so amazing! At his mother's knee a man may have heard again and again the sweet, sad story of the Crucifixion. Hundreds of times its pathos may have been impressed upon him by earnest teachers and eloquent preachers. The first songs that he learned to sing may have fastened upon his heart the pitifulness of the world's great tragedy. By iteration and reiteration, by constant representation in song and picture and speech, the story of the Cross may have become the most familiar story a man has ever heard. It matters nothing. A day will come – the greatest day in his soul's long pilgrimage – in which the Cross will take to itself all the characteristics of an incredible sensation. He will scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. The blood will leave his face; his heart will stop beating and his nerves will quiver with excitement. His whole soul will be thrown into a tumult of agitation. The Cross will suddenly become very surprising to him. There is all the difference in the world between being touched to tears by the tender pathos of a thousand love stories and – falling in love yourself! The same immeasurable gulf yawns between the emotion with which one hears, as an historic recital, the moving story of the Crucifixion and the emotion with which one suddenly recognizes, as his own personal Redeemer, the Saviour who die upon the Cross.
The second look was a look of Wonder. 'Then he stood for a while,' Bunyan says, 'to look and wonder.' Wonder follows naturally upon surprise. So far from there being two names for the same thing, it may be said that wonder cannot come to its own as long as surprise is present. Whilst the faculties are still paralyzed by astonishment, wonder cannot do its best work. Wonder is far greater than surprise. Surprise is sudden and fleeting; it evaporates quickly; the astonishment of yesterday becomes the commonplace of today. But wonder remains; it is abiding and permanent. When, as a small child, I was first permitted to go outdoors at night, I was astonished to see the stars glittering in the skies above me. When, nowadays, I leave home of an evening, the stars fail to surprise me. But, as I observe their movements, admire their arrangement, and contemplate their multitude and immensity, I am filled with a wonder such as, in infancy, I never knew. When springtime follows on the heels of winter, it does not surprise me; on the contrary, I should be surprised if it did not come. But it fills me with wonder. And when, someday, a springtime comes that stirs within me no such feeling; when I stare vacantly and unwonderingly upon the buds in the hedgerow, the nests in the elms and the lambs in the meadows, it will be a sign of the failure of my powers. I shall cease to wonder just before I cease to live.
The third look is the look of Faith. The phraseology that connects looking with believing is very ancient; and it has lasted so long because it is so true to life and experience. Adopting the symbolism of the serpent in the wilderness, and the Saviour's comment on that historic imagery, the hymn says that 'There is life for a look at the Crucified one'. 'Look unto Me and be ye saved!' cried the preacher at Colchester.
IV
I look to my doctor to heal me when I am hurt; I look to my lawyer to advise me when I am perplexed; I look to my tradesmen to bring my daily supplies to my door; and Bunyan's pilgrim discovered that there is One to whom I may look with confidence when my soul aches for deliverance. This is the look of Faith: the Look Superlative.
Christian's three looks at the Cross were followed by three leaps for joy, and then he went on his way singing. It is ever so. The Cross is the inspiration for our blithest songs. Francis left St. Damian's singing; young Spurgeon left Artillery Street singing; the Saviour Himself, for joy that He could save the world by dying for it, sang as He abandoned Himself to His anguish. And every man who, like Bunyan's pilgrim, has looked and looked and looked again upon the Cross, has found his soul flooded with a sudden melody. 'He went on his way singing', and singing as the birds sing in the full-throated ecstasy of a summer's morning, he passes from our sight.
F W Boreham, 'Easter Eyes,' Arrows of Desire, 1951.
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